Heated cave for Jetta (outdoor Russian tortoise)

[greenighs]

Jetta lives outside, has free range of the back yard. It gets chilly here at night (fifties, high forties at times), so I was worried he would be having trouble with digestion, respiration. So I got him an outdoor heating pad and built a little cave for him to hide in at night. It has plenty of headroom, and room for him to turn around.

Before this, I'm assuming he's dug himself a burrow in the dirt, under the mulch behind my cottage. It's pretty wild back there.

I'm planning on putting in some ornamental grasses and a few potted succulents around the cave to make it more sheltered, give him some privacy and protection from wind. The heated pad is on a timer, goes on at 5pm, turns off at 9am.

 

[dmmj]

over the decades now I found tortoises several times buried in the mulch. It's very warm in there due to decomposition

 

[wellington]

Just be sure there is room in his cave to get away from the heat mat should he want or gets too hot. Russians can take pretty cool temps as long as they can warm up the next day. So important he can get away from the heat too