Winter cooling period

[JimmyNightlizard]

Hello all,
I have 2 adult pairs of goniurosaurus hainanensis. I did get fertile eggs from one of the females this year and successfully hatched out 6 eggs! I did not breed these myself. I've only had them in my care for one year. I'm guessing the female mated with with the male that came in with her while in the care of the vendor who I baught them from??? At the time of purchase nov 08, I was told that the 1.2 were fresh imports and had only been in captivity for 3 months. I was told the male was kept together with the females in a ten gal tank. The females stayed on the opposite side of the tank of the male. Its possible that being being fresh out of the wild, and so close together that he mated with that female. Over the summer I baught a second male to help out with my captive breeding efforts. Over the last few months I've tried to intoduce both males to the female that did'nt lay any fertle eggs countless times with no luck. She just ignored them or faught them off. I recently read some caresheets I found on here, and it says before introducing the two sexes, that they first need to be cooled down in late november until early march. My question is, can you go lower than 60 degrees? Is 40 too low? do you stop offering food completely during this time, or keep feeding them just once a week? Do they go into a true state of hybernation? Like lets say a green lacerta would? What is the desired temperature range? I know that there is lowland and highland races, I'm guessing that their cooling requirements are different from one another. Is there anyone that knows the differences between the two by looking at pics? I attached a few pics so if anyone has a clue please feel free to give you input.
Thanks!

 

[OffshoreMetal]

Wow, I really like their evil eyes

 

[geckomaster]

I don't think you have to worry about cooling them down to be honest with you. I've heard that it helps with the araneus, though mine bred without, but from both past and now that I'm up breeding again - current experience cooling isn't necessary with either the hainanensis or the luii. These guys are extremely prolific and here in chicago I basically keep them at room temp throughout the year. That equals mid to high 70's in the summer and lower 70's in the winter, but only a difference of a few degrees. As far as the introduction goes they will start their season again here in a few months (though they can breed outside of the norm being kept inside). I house all of my adult breeding groups together. I keep the young apart so they can get individual attention growing up, but otherwise they live together and eventually start laying eggs. Some girls will avoid/fight the males, just like with the leopard geckos, but when they go into season they'll be more than ready. You probably just won't see it. Let me know how everybody's doing and if you are interested in trading babies as I'd like to get some more bloodlines going for the next few seasons myself. As far as feeding I feed consistently throughout the year. The highland/lowland issue is kinda sketchy unless you know the exporter and the exact location they came from. There are some visual clues, but again it's not an exact science. There are some good pics at www.ms-goniurosaurus.de of both, but be careful with locality issues as it's easy to go from solid science to conjecture and pseudo-science.