The Great Escape - Part deux

[Yvonne G]

Take a look at this picture:

A pleasing shot, right? A rain forest tortoise enjoying a bit of sun in the rain forest, right? WRONG!!!

This is the Mutt half of Mutt and Jeff, two intergrade tortoises that were given back to me by the buyer after some years because of a divorce. And the problem with the picture is that Mutt is in the box turtle pen...NOT in the rain forest!!

Here is a shot of the inside of the rain forest fence:

Each board is appx. 5 1/2 inches wide, so that fence up to the space near the top is about 22 or 23 inches high. Mutt is too thick to fit through the space, so he'd have to go over the top.

Here's a shot behind a bush where the top board has been broken down:

And this is a shot where a partial fence inside the enclosure makes a "V" in front of the grape vine. I have caught Mutt at the top of this fence eating the grape leaves:

Ok, so once he's over the Rain Forest fence, wherever that might have occurred, he would land in the young desert tortoise area:

Its hard to see, but this is where he escaped from last time, so I put up a horizontal piece of plywood over the outside of the pen and its about 18" wide. I'm pretty sure he couldn't escape from here. So if he went into the non-inhabited area:

He would either get stuck in the leopard pen which is surrounded on three sides by unsurmountable sides, or he would have made his escape out the front:

This area is also "secured" (HA!) by a horizontal board, however this board is only a few inches and there's a space at one end that I THINK might have been the culprit:

 

[Greg T]

You certainly have your hands full with your group of torts!!

Headaches for you = entertaining reading for us!

 

[Yvonne G]

Once out into the real world, this is the alleyway between the old house and the box turtle pens:

And here you can see that on the left side of the alleyway there are several interior box turtle fences:

I was in the shade and some of the pens are in the sun, and it was hard for the camera to adjust, sorry.

This a.m. I was sitting on my stool in the third box turtle pen over, and pulling grass, when I saw that darned SNAKE IN THE GRASS escape artist in a clump of grass:

He's in that last clump with all the seed heads on it. Here's another shot:

In a way, this escape was a good thing. I had been planning on removing the fence between the Rain Forest and the section behind the greenhouse and the baby desert tortoise area. If I had, I might have lost some of the tortoises. Now I know that my fence isn't secure and I've got some more work to do before I can let them in there.

This tortoise is SUCH a good climber. I wish I had the time to just sit there and watch him and see where his next plan of escape might be, but instead I'm just going to have to beef up the exterior fences and take my chances!

Yvonne

---

You certainly have your hands full with your group of torts!!

Headaches for you = entertaining reading for us!

Sorry about that, Greg: I knew that the program would only accept 10 photos, so I started a new post in the middle. The end of the story is after your post!

Yvonne

 

[Isa]

Woooowww, Mutt is good and he is clever (he is a real trouble maker )
You have a real escape artist there As Greg said, you have your hands full with your torts .

 

[Crazy1]

Yvonne, just think of it this way; Mutt has nothing better to do all day long then to plot and plan his escape. The is such a nice green pasture on the other side of his fence.
I'm glad you noticed him and Sorry for the work he has now brought to your attention but better that than to loose torts. Mutt only wanted to let you know things are not as secure as you need them to be and he thought he'd show you. Now off to work with you mending fences.

 

[Yvonne G]

Yeah that darned brat! In order to get where I found him he had to climb over five fences! I really wish I could ever see him. What a determined tortoise!

Yvonne

 

[Maggie Cummings]

He's so much more of an escape artist then Bob is. Because I know your yard so well, I was laughing out loud! How fun for me to see it all...

 

[Stazz]

Jeepers creepers ! Spiderman Mutt !!! That is just so crazy Yvonne. I wish I could seeing him climbing all those fences too, must be such a sight!!! Keep a video cam handy LOL!

 

[Jacqui]

He's only wanting to help! Now you know how to test out pens to see if they are escape proof.

Hmmm you have a tort that will climb a fence to get to grape leaves and here none of my torts want to even eat one in their food dish.

 

[Crazy1]

Hey Yvonne, just a thought, maybe you could rent him out as the tester of pens. At least that way he would be earning his keep and he could put his talents to work. Sort of like the mis-behaved dog that just needed a job to do. Now 5 fences is one determined tort. He must really believe the grass is always greener on the other side of every fence.

 

[Yvonne G]

This a.m. I added some horizontal boards to the outside fence of the un-occupied section of the rain forest.

Trouble is, now my gate is inoperable. But I guess that's ok. Then I took down two secions of fence at the rain forest side.

I watched for a while, but they were all too busy eating mulberry leaves that I had cut down for them, so I put the adult Mee at the open section. She immediately went through, walked over to the outside fence, just like she had done it before (but this was the first time she'd ever been in there) and tried to climb out. Of course, they can't climb there anymore!! I wonder if they have a shared memory. After his hard day of Alpine-climbing, Mutt spent all of last night and all of today (He didn't even come out to eat) here:

That's Jeff right up against the wall in the corner, with Mutt just next to him. They don't care that I've not finished their shed. They seem to really like it anyway!!

Yvonne