My Best Night Box Design Yet

[G-stars]

Sorry to revive this thread...I really love the hide box, but how do you attach the overhead light/CHE when/if you open the roof to remove poop and all that?

In this case, wouldn't attaching them to the side be better? I want to follow your steps!

I don't think he uses CHEs for these. I think he uses an oil filled heater as it works much better to heat up that large of an area.

 

[thegame2388]

I don't think he uses CHEs for these. I think he uses an oil filled heater as it works much better to heat up that large of an area.

Nice! But either way, how does one use heat lamps or UVB lamps and attach to the ceiling if it's constantly being opened and closed? Maybe only half the root "opens".

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Nice! But either way, how does one use heat lamps or UVB lamps and attach to the ceiling if it's constantly being opened and closed? Maybe only half the root "opens".

I know you asked this on my thread too... I did not attach anything to the roof. My heater is on the floor and there are no lights needed. This isn't an outside enclosure for full time living. It's a night box for torts that live in the yard/large pens.

Tom has attached heat panels to the ceiling but as long as your cord has enough slack, the lid should open fine

 

[mrpomerenke]

Hi Tom!

Your night box is AMAZING and I plan on building one following your design for my 4 year old Sulcata tomorrow. I had a couple quick questions for you if you don't mind?

1. Looks like your lid is bigger all the way around than the rest of the box; You must have cut the floor plywood sheet about 2' all the way around? Do I have that correct?

2. How tall would you suggest I build his box? He's probably a foot high now and growing! I was thinking between 3 or 4 feet tall?

3. And, is that 1/2" plywood?

Thank you soooo much for helping out a total newbie (by the way, I live in Phoenix, AZ if it matters regarding your advise)

Cheers

Christopher

After much thought about what worked and what I wanted to improve over previous attempts, here is the latest version with a step by step pictorial on how I did it. It is time for my 2010 South African herd to move outside. They are moving into a 16x20' completely closed in enclosure. The enclosure is a wooden frame enclosed top to bottom with welded wire. It has a wire roof and the wire extends 18" down into the ground. The actual night box is 4x8x2'. I found a mini oil-filled heater to heat it with. The heater is on a thermostat and will be set to 80 for about half of the year and 70 over the warmer months.

Here is the lid. You can see the insulation in place.

Here is the plywood cover going over the insulation in the lid. The lid fits on top of the box and is hinged. There will be weatherstripping all around the top and the lip on the lid keeps the rain out of the box. You can see a finished lid for a second box in the background.

Here is the bottom. Notice the door notch and how that will fit in later.

Insulation in the bottom. All the insulation is 1.5" thick and has the shiny mylar foil side pointing to the outside. Don't know if that matters much, but thats how I did it.

Insulation on the floor all covered up.

Here the front and back are attached. Notice the door taking shape. Since 9 animals will initially share this, and as they get older they will get bigger, I went kinda big with the door at 26x16". This way one of them won't be able to sit in the doorway and block all the others in or out, and later, when they reach adult size, they will easily fit in and out of this door.

Another view of the front with the sides going up.

Here the side wall insulation is in place and about to be covered up. This box is also double caulked to keep out any cold drafts on those below freezing winter nights. The only air movement will be from the door, or when I open the lid.

All buttoned up.

Here goes the front insulation.

The front insulation is all covered up here. The 2x4 blocks there will support a 2x10" water tub holding shelf. Having containers of water inside will keep the humidity up in the night box, and act as a bit of a heat sink. This technique has been working very well in my underground sulcata night box.

Here's a top view showing the area where the heater will live, the weather stripping in place, the door flaps, and the 2x4 in the back that the lid hinges attach to.

Here is the front with paint and door flaps and water shelves in place.

Here is the door. I will carve out the dirt where the door/ramp hits the ground so it sits flush. One "weak" spot of previous designs was the simple plywood door. I went to great time and trouble to super insulate my night boxes, but then just used thin plywood to cover the door holes. This time the door shares the same 1.5" insulation as the rest of the box. Door open:

Door Closed:

Here you can see the heater installed, the metal heat shield above it, the water tubs for humidity on the shelves, and my purple shoe box that holds all my electrical stuff.

Here are some of the babies enjoying their bermuda grass bedding.

Here is a wide view showing some of the enclosure. The empty wooden box in the lower right foreground of the pic is their 4x8' shade table/planter box. I will be filling it and planting leopard tortoise food in their in the next few days.

One more view of the same thing from the other side.

Well that's it. Tell me what you think.

 

[Tom]

Hi Christopher. Welcome to the forum and thanks for the compliments.

To your questions:
1. The lids on my boxes start with either a full 48x96" sheet of plywood or a 48x48". Then I put the 2x4 lip around the outer edge. The rest of the box must fit inside this with a little room to spare for opening and closing the lid. Since 2x4s are 1.5" I have to cut the inside portion down by 3" for that, and I take off an additional inch to give me a half inch of clearance on each side, and front and back, for opening and closing the lid. So the outside length and width of the actual box the tortoise lives in is 44x44" under a 48x48" lid. Because of the wall thickness, the inside length and width ends up being close to 40x40" for the tortoise. With a 26x16" door opening, this design will work well for all but the true behemoth sulcatas. Any sulcata that is around 100 pounds will fit just fine in this size.
2. No more than 24". Even a really large sulcata will not have a shell height more than 14-15". Making a 36-48" tall box just means you are heating a bunch of dead air space for no reason. Plus the radiant heat panels won't work well from that high up. I made a 16" tall box and that works very well for smaller tortoises, but 24" in the right height for adult sulcatas in my experience. Any taller and its a waste of lumber and space.
3. They stopped calling it "1/2 inch" plywood long ago. If I recall correctly this is 11/32 ply. The insulation does the work, so I use thin plywood to keep the weight and costs down. It works well for me. Temps were in the 30's here last night and all my tort boxes are in the low 80's and nice and toasty.

 

[mrpomerenke]

Thank you sooo much Tom for all the wisdom!

I had another question: Does it matter where i put the door opening? I've noticed people have taken your design and moved the door all the way to the left or all the way to the right. Does it make much of a difference?
(My night box will be 4x8x2 and housing one male 4 year old Sulcata)

Thanks again Tom!

Christopher

Hi Christopher. Welcome to the forum and thanks for the compliments.

To your questions:
1. The lids on my boxes start with either a full 48x96" sheet of plywood or a 48x48". Then I put the 2x4 lip around the outer edge. The rest of the box must fit inside this with a little room to spare for opening and closing the lid. Since 2x4s are 1.5" I have to cut the inside portion down by 3" for that, and I take off an additional inch to give me a half inch of clearance on each side, and front and back, for opening and closing the lid. So the outside length and width of the actual box the tortoise lives in is 44x44" under a 48x48" lid. Because of the wall thickness, the inside length and width ends up being close to 40x40" for the tortoise. With a 26x16" door opening, this design will work well for all but the true behemoth sulcatas. Any sulcata that is around 100 pounds will fit just fine in this size.
2. No more than 24". Even a really large sulcata will not have a shell height more than 14-15". Making a 36-48" tall box just means you are heating a bunch of dead air space for no reason. Plus the radiant heat panels won't work well from that high up. I made a 16" tall box and that works very well for smaller tortoises, but 24" in the right height for adult sulcatas in my experience. Any taller and its a waste of lumber and space.
3. They stopped calling it "1/2 inch" plywood long ago. If I recall correctly this is 11/32 ply. The insulation does the work, so I use thin plywood to keep the weight and costs down. It works well for me. Temps were in the 30's here last night and all my tort boxes are in the low 80's and nice and toasty.

 

[Tom]

Thank you sooo much Tom for all the wisdom!

I had another question: Does it matter where i put the door opening? I've noticed people have taken your design and moved the door all the way to the left or all the way to the right. Does it make much of a difference?
(My night box will be 4x8x2 and housing one male 4 year old Sulcata)

Thanks again Tom!

Christopher

I put my doors in different places depending on the application, the number of tortoises the box is being made for and where the box will sit. I think in most cases it is best to make the door over to one side or the other.

THere is no harm in making a 4x8' box for a single sulcata, but a 4x4' will work just fine.

 

[mrpomerenke]

Hi Tom! Thanks again for all your help!

I'm happy to announce that I'm almost done with our "Fort Tort" and should be completing it this afternoon (will post pics soon).

My question was, where do you think I could find the clear plastic "flap-curtain's" for the doorway?

I put a call in to a refrigeration place here in Phoenix but it sounds like they need to order it but I was hoping to install it today.

Thanks again Tom!

Christopher

I put my doors in different places depending on the application, the number of tortoises the box is being made for and where the box will sit. I think in most cases it is best to make the door over to one side or the other.

THere is no harm in making a 4x8' box for a single sulcata, but a 4x4' will work just fine.

 

[Tom]

Hi Tom! Thanks again for all your help!

I'm happy to announce that I'm almost done with our "Fort Tort" and should be completing it this afternoon (will post pics soon).

My question was, where do you think I could find the clear plastic "flap-curtain's" for the doorway?

I put a call in to a refrigeration place here in Phoenix but it sounds like they need to order it but I was hoping to install it today.

Thanks again Tom!

Christopher

I don't know where to get that material. It is the door flap material used in commercial freezers. I got mine in a 100' roll from a friend here on the forum who ordered it online originally.

Your box should work just fine with out it. You will just lose a little more heat out the doorway during the day when the door is open.

 

[Yvonne G]

Do some online shopping for "vinyl strip door" or go to any fabric store. They sell it too. But if you buy it online, don't get the stuff that is made to withstand many minus zero degrees. It's a bit too thick for the tortoise to maneuver through easily.

 

[prettysure]

Tom, are you still insulating the hinged roofs on all of your boxes? I wasn't able to clearly tell from pictures on other threads.

 

[Tom]

Tom, are you still insulating the hinged roofs on all of your boxes? I wasn't able to clearly tell from pictures on other threads.

Yes. This is an important step. The bottom should be insulated too.

 

[ksanchez]

After much thought about what worked and what I wanted to improve over previous attempts, here is the latest version with a step by step pictorial on how I did it. It is time for my 2010 South African herd to move outside. They are moving into a 16x20' completely closed in enclosure. The enclosure is a wooden frame enclosed top to bottom with welded wire. It has a wire roof and the wire extends 18" down into the ground. The actual night box is 4x8x2'. I found a mini oil-filled heater to heat it with. The heater is on a thermostat and will be set to 80 for about half of the year and 70 over the warmer months.

Here is the lid. You can see the insulation in place.

Here is the plywood cover going over the insulation in the lid. The lid fits on top of the box and is hinged. There will be weatherstripping all around the top and the lip on the lid keeps the rain out of the box. You can see a finished lid for a second box in the background.

Here is the bottom. Notice the door notch and how that will fit in later.

Insulation in the bottom. All the insulation is 1.5" thick and has the shiny mylar foil side pointing to the outside. Don't know if that matters much, but thats how I did it.

Insulation on the floor all covered up.

Here the front and back are attached. Notice the door taking shape. Since 9 animals will initially share this, and as they get older they will get bigger, I went kinda big with the door at 26x16". This way one of them won't be able to sit in the doorway and block all the others in or out, and later, when they reach adult size, they will easily fit in and out of this door.

Another view of the front with the sides going up.

Here the side wall insulation is in place and about to be covered up. This box is also double caulked to keep out any cold drafts on those below freezing winter nights. The only air movement will be from the door, or when I open the lid.

All buttoned up.

Here goes the front insulation.

The front insulation is all covered up here. The 2x4 blocks there will support a 2x10" water tub holding shelf. Having containers of water inside will keep the humidity up in the night box, and act as a bit of a heat sink. This technique has been working very well in my underground sulcata night box.

Here's a top view showing the area where the heater will live, the weather stripping in place, the door flaps, and the 2x4 in the back that the lid hinges attach to.

Here is the front with paint and door flaps and water shelves in place.

Here is the door. I will carve out the dirt where the door/ramp hits the ground so it sits flush. One "weak" spot of previous designs was the simple plywood door. I went to great time and trouble to super insulate my night boxes, but then just used thin plywood to cover the door holes. This time the door shares the same 1.5" insulation as the rest of the box. Door open:

Door Closed:

Here you can see the heater installed, the metal heat shield above it, the water tubs for humidity on the shelves, and my purple shoe box that holds all my electrical stuff.

Here are some of the babies enjoying their bermuda grass bedding.

Here is a wide view showing some of the enclosure. The empty wooden box in the lower right foreground of the pic is their 4x8' shade table/planter box. I will be filling it and planting leopard tortoise food in their in the next few days.

One more view of the same thing from the other side.

Well that's it. Tell me what you think.

@Tom it looks great. I love it. Thank you for sharing.

I did something simmular, with a box my father and I built, but it doesn't have a heater in. It also has insulation inside all the walls, ceiling, and floor. It is temporally housing my sulcata. He will eventually get a bigger box, probably without a floor so he can dig in the dirt, the the one he is in will then be used for my redfoots/cherryheads. I should post some pictures on day.

 

[Tom]

@Tom it looks great. I love it. Thank you for sharing.

I did something simmular, with a box my father and I built, but it doesn't have a heater in. It also has insulation inside all the walls, ceiling, and floor. It is temporally housing my sulcata. He will eventually get a bigger box, probably without a floor so he can dig in the dirt, the the one he is in will then be used for my redfoots/cherryheads. I should post some pictures on day.

How are you keeping it warm with no heater?

I tried a dirt floor once. Its hard to keep it warm in the winter and they dig to China. I would suggest you keep using a solid, well insulated floor.

Pics would be great.

 

[ksanchez]

How are you keeping it warm with no heater?

I tried a dirt floor once. Its hard to keep it warm in the winter and they dig to China. I would suggest you keep using a solid, well insulated floor.

Pics would be great.

@Tom I don't have a heater like you used but a heat bulb (CHE). I do not like how the door came out in our first design so I will make the second one different. My sulcata is only about 13 inches now and I live in the Southern Ca (Inland Empire area), but if it does get really cold like last week I bring him inside. I know I can't do this forever so the next house will need either two bulbs or a heater. I also have pictures of how we built it. I will try to get them posted soon.
What I've learned from Dave and Maree in Ojai when we went out to meet them was its better not to have floors in sulcata's houses because they do LOVE to poop and pee in their to help keep the humidity up. Here is a link to their website. http://ojaisulcataproject.org/index.html
They are amazing people.
Right now he does scratch the floor a little but not much.

 

[Tom]

I know Dave and am happy to call him a friend. Dave and I have some different ideas about how to keep sulcatas, and that is our main topic of discussion on the phone or when we meet. Dave subscribes to a lot of "old school" ideas. Some of those old ideas are great and serve our tortoises well, but new knowledge has been gained and a lot of trial and many errors, have shown me what works best. One of Dave's ideas is that sulcatas can tolerate cold temperatures. Well, he is right. They can. They can survive cold temperatures in some cases. My argument to him is: Are cold temps GOOD for them? Would they experience cold temps like what he subjects his tortoises to deep down in their warm humid burrows in the hottest parts of Africa? I say no to both questions. Here is what I tell Dave: I have done it the old way. I did it that way for nearly 20 years. Raised dozens of them that way. I know what it does, and what the results will be. Dave, on the other hand has never done it MY way, and has no idea what the results are from that. Over the past few years he has been slowly coming around to my way of thinking about some of these things, but who knows how far he will go. Anyhow, I really like the guy, and respect his goals and intentions with sulcatas, even if he and I don't agree on some points.

About your heating strategy: CHEs can work in some cases, but here is my problem with them: They concentrate the heat all in one small spot. If the fixture is high enough and the tortoise small enough, like yours, they can work. But over the years I have seen so many cases of carapace damage on large tortoise from over head heat lamps and CHEs, that its sickening. There is a better way, and it took me many years of trial and error and experimentation to find it. You and your tortoise don't have to go through all of that.

Here is an example of the damage I'm talking about:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/open-topped-pyramided-scute.19691/

Here is my underground night box that started with a dirt floor. Go to post #25 on page 2 to see why I say not to use a dirt floor in your night house:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/daisys-new-enclosure.28662/

Here is the "better way" that I talked about earlier. These panels do basically the same thing as a CHE, but spread the heat out over a much greater area. This is one of my boxes for a single big sulcata.
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/another-night-box-thread.88966/

 

[Dizisdalife]

Maybe I have been lucky, but my sulcata doesn't pee or poop in his night box. Honestly, in the 500 or so nights that he has lived in this box he may have peed or pooped in there 5 times. The night box is built very much like Tom's design including the water dishes to add humidity. Maybe with the added humidity he hasn't had that instinctual urge to add his on "humidity". The box is 4'x6'x2' high and my sulcata is 20" scl weighing 50-55 pounds. I don't like CHE's for heat in these boxes because they seem to be too close to a larger tortoise's shell causing hot spots and drying. A mini oil filled radiators or radiated heating panels are more gentle on the shell and seem to provide more stable temperature levels.

 

[ksanchez]

Thank you @Tom and @Dizisdalife .
@Tom I just read and looked at each of the links you posted and you make a great point. I would not mind using (trying a Radiant Heat Panel).
Where would you suggest I look for one? I just looked on Amazon and Ebay for a few minutes.

My biggest struggle is just how big should I make his box? I will not get another sulcata. So it just needs to be big enough for him. I will work on posting pictures of mine I have 10-15. I am a little new to tortoise form.

 

[Yvonne G]

You want to make it just big enough that he has room to get away from the heat source in case it fails. The smaller it is the cheaper to keep it warm. And all they do in the night box is sleep, so it doesn't have to be big enough for exercise.

And my sulcata covers the floor of his night box with poop every night. Not much pee, only occasionally, but poop? Oh my!

 

[ksanchez]

OK I have my pictures ready. How do I post them and be able to write information above them? I don't know how to do that like @Tom did.