Outdoor pancake enclosure

leigti

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southeast Washington
I did the same with a male pancake tortoise I had acquired back in 2006. I had been interested in pancake tortoises since I first saw them as a boy in the Albuquerque Zoo when my old man was stationed there back in the eighties. They had this awesome setup for them that had a big rock wall where they all could wedge themselves in place. To be honest, I'm not sure if it was all that great, given that at the time, I had no idea about pancakes, and my rose colored glasses of childhood make it seem more wonderful than it probably was.

When I got this male, unfortunately, he was incredibly shy. He was also quite good at escaping, able to climb a vertical cinderblock wall with a short overhang. I found this very surprising, given that I placed a series of flat bricks over the top, but he managed to shimmy his way around them, climb up beneath the screen cover, and shimmy his way out. I had to redesign the whole enclosure top after he escaped. Luckily, the wooden fence around my tortoise area and the stone fence with the hot wire beyond that kept him confined. But still, when folks speak to their escapist mentality, it really is something that should be taken very seriously.

Ultimately, I found this guy a little on the shy side. I don't know if that's the norm for this species, but this guy would basically run for cover anytime I walked anywhere near his enclosure. This made observing his behavior extremely difficult. I knew he was grazing, based upon the marks he left on the various succulents I grew in his enclosure. But he would never eat in front of me, and I was never able to watch him with binoculars, given the alcatraz-like nature of his confinement. So, in the end, I did as you did. I handed him over to a friend of mine in Arizona who was working with the species. He's now a daddy eight times over.

Yeah, this guy was very interesting, and surprisingly cold tolerant. Well, they are a montane species, so I suppose it isn't that surprising. The gent I got him from was a snake person from Houston, and he said that he simply allowed the tortoise free run of his backyard, allowing the animal to bed down for the winter beneath his tool shed. I never pushed the guy to this limit, but he certainly didn't seem to mind a chilly evening or two in the sixties. I kind of miss the little fellow, but I think I, like you, made the right choice.

T.G.

I think pancake tortoises are more sorry than other kinds of tortoises. Jack did eat out of my hand a couple times. And he would come out when I brought food. Heck, I always thought of that tortoise as male and I still do :)
I have only owned a Russian tortoise, a Boxturtle, and a pancake tortoise. But that pancake tortoise was the most agile, fast, escape artist. She could scramble and climb and jump around and over everything. Her new owner mentioned this and I had to smile.
She actually did escape from my outdoor pen and was gone for a week. I was sick. And at that time I still thought she was a male. I remember telling my friend, "it would be a real tragedy if Jack was female, this species needs more females for captive bred babies". She was found a week later a block and a half away, almost a direct line from her pen and across a busy street. A little dehydrated and hungry but no worse for the wear. Thank God she was found. And when I found out she was female I was even more thankful.
She escaped from a pen with hardware cloth over the top. And wire underneath. And rocks lining the whole thing. But I guess it doesn't take much when you're only about half an inch tall :) more rocks, including more on top, a couple 2 x 12's to wait it down some more, she didn't escape again.
Pancake tortoises are definitely a unique breed.
 

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