Work In Progress!

Ezarate

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Jan 6, 2018
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Grand junction
Hello Guys sometime ago I made a post about how to build my own enclosure, and now its being built with all of the advice given.

Enclosure Details:
The biggest I could make it was 4'x6'9", If I added another 2' Then we couldn't get into the bathroom. I added hooks for a Heat Lamp and 2 Lights. I'm going to cover all of the bottom with PVC Liner/Pond Liner so that the humidity, and substrate, doesn't rot the wood. I still have to add 2' 1x1 wood on each corner so that when I cover it with Clear Plastic It sits up Like a Tent. I Plan on Attaching the Plastic to the outside of the sides with Clamps, this way its easy to remove the top for cleaning. I Made it in 2 Parts, as shown in one of the pictures. This way it isn't too heavy and easy to set up. I drilled a cut price of fence Down the middle to join both parts. The smallest screws I could find for the wood was 1/4" too big so I had to use a grinder to cut the screw tips so no one gets hurt.
As of right now I'm 158$ into this, I believe there's only another 80$ worth of stuff left to do. Pretty great for those that have a very low budget.

Questions:
For somthing this large what would you do to keep this at 70% humidity? I noticed our pet store has these large half gallon Sprayers, I'm thinking about getting that, and just spraying the inside every so often. Also is it OK for Tortellini to eat Dandelions every day? now that we have grass growing he seems to be eating dandelions more than grass.

Tortellini Notes:
Now that spring is coming along he likes to munch on grass and dandelions, which is great. I'm hoping that by the time fall comes around I can start having him eat Orchard Hay.

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Last edited:

Maro2Bear

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Greetings. Our Sully eats dandelions & grass & weeds etc every day. Lots n lots of dandelion blossoms will make their urine pretty dark. That area you have isn't all that large, but not sure how to help. Maybe just a full room humidifier since it looks he’s taken over that room.

I think he's going to quickly outgrow that space. I would also protect your walls up higher. By the time you had a good layer of substrate, it will be in scratching range of your dry wall.
 

Ezarate

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Location (City and/or State)
Grand junction
Greetings. Our Sully eats dandelions & grass & weeds etc every day. Lots n lots of dandelion blossoms will make their urine pretty dark. That area you have isn't all that large, but not sure how to help. Maybe just a full room humidifier since it looks he’s taken over that room.

I think he's going to quickly outgrow that space. I would also protect your walls up higher. By the time you had a good layer of substrate, it will be in scratching range of your dry wall.

Unfortunately this is all we can really do, we don't have the luxury of building somthing very large, but I've seen Happy Sulcatas in smaller enclosures. 7" wide wood was the largest the budget could handle, if he gets big enough to attempt to walk or eat the plastic cover I'll Extend the walls up easy. I'm not sure about the whole room being 70% humid, this trailer is falling apart as is, It's also where we keep our corgi when we are working so he wouldn't enjoy that. And yes the dog likes Tortellini just fine lol.
 

Maro2Bear

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Forgot to ask how old your Sully is? Once it really starts to grow, 24 sq feet won’t really provide much space.
Upload some pix when it’s all finished.
 

Ezarate

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Forgot to ask how old your Sully is? Once it really starts to grow, 24 sq feet won’t really provide much space.
Upload some pix when it’s all finished.

10", the custom glass container i made is just pathetically small now. Also this isn't permanent were hoping to be able to get an actual house in the near future where I could get him a large insulated shed outside. Worst Case scenario he's fully grown and we haven't moved ill talk with my trailerpark about getting a big shed outside.
 

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Ezarate

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Location (City and/or State)
Grand junction
Forgot to ask how old your Sully is? Once it really starts to grow, 24 sq feet won’t really provide much space.
Upload some pix when it’s all finished.

Quick Question what Would be good for a fully grown sulcata? So I can start snooping around for Rent to Own storages. Anything above 9'x9' I'm guessing
 

rideburton87

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Quick Question what Would be good for a fully grown sulcata? So I can start snooping around for Rent to Own storages. Anything above 9'x9' I'm guessing

In reality? Your tortoise would need a quarter acre to roam and graze all day and wouldn't be enough. Full grown your Sulcata could end up being a 120lb monster, and 9x9 wouldn't be nearly enough space for him.
 

Tom

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Unfortunately this is all we can really do, we don't have the luxury of building somthing very large, but I've seen Happy Sulcatas in smaller enclosures. 7" wide wood was the largest the budget could handle, if he gets big enough to attempt to walk or eat the plastic cover I'll Extend the walls up easy. I'm not sure about the whole room being 70% humid, this trailer is falling apart as is, It's also where we keep our corgi when we are working so he wouldn't enjoy that. And yes the dog likes Tortellini just fine lol.
Please reassure us that your dog doesn't have access to the tortoise. You know about dogs and tortoises, right?

Grass and dandelions are both good tortoise foods, but you need more like 20 different food items. They need lots of variety in the diet. Have you seen this?
 

Ezarate

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Please reassure us that your dog doesn't have access to the tortoise. You know about dogs and tortoises, right?

Grass and dandelions are both good tortoise foods, but you need more like 20 different food items. They need lots of variety in the diet. Have you seen this?
the dog is unable to use his back legs he can't reach over the 7" side of it. and if he does it will be covered anyway he wouldn't try to get in. And yes I'm aware of their diet
Please reassure us that your dog doesn't have access to the tortoise. You know about dogs and tortoises, right?

Grass and dandelions are both good tortoise foods, but you need more like 20 different food items. They need lots of variety in the diet. Have you seen this?
I really like that salad style diet, Its really hard for us here as we only have green grass 6 months out of the year
 

Tom

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...Its really hard for us here as we only have green grass 6 months out of the year
To that I say: AMENDMENTS!

Salad style is a prefect example, but there are lots of others too. Tortoisesupply.com also sells and excellent "herbal hay" that works just like the salad style. Will over at @Kapidolo Farms has tons of different dried leaves, dehydrated cactus chips, and loads of other good supplemental foods that can be soaked, or sprinkled on top of some romaine or spring mix to make an excellent tortoise meal. Soaked ZooMed pellets, or Mazuri pellets mixed in with the grocery store food is another way to make it better.

All of the above should allow anyone to feed their tortoise an excellent diet anywhere in the world at any time of year.

I think your idea of introducing the orchard grass hay will be a life saver too. I start them on it by simply putting some on a large fast food tray and feeding them all their other food on top of it. This food association gets them familiar with it and makes them like it. Over time they start nibbling on the hay along with their "food".
 

Ezarate

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To that I say: AMENDMENTS!

Salad style is a prefect example, but there are lots of others too. Tortoisesupply.com also sells and excellent "herbal hay" that works just like the salad style. Will over at @Kapidolo Farms has tons of different dried leaves, dehydrated cactus chips, and loads of other good supplemental foods that can be soaked, or sprinkled on top of some romaine or spring mix to make an excellent tortoise meal. Soaked ZooMed pellets, or Mazuri pellets mixed in with the grocery store food is another way to make it better.

All of the above should allow anyone to feed their tortoise an excellent diet anywhere in the world at any time of year.

I think your idea of introducing the orchard grass hay will be a life saver too. I start them on it by simply putting some on a large fast food tray and feeding them all their other food on top of it. This food association gets them familiar with it and makes them like it. Over time they start nibbling on the hay along with their "food".
Awesome this is great I was really starting to stress about what to do thanks to winter, his diet is mainly weeds and grass as of a few days ago mixed with some Leafy greens. once he eats more grass I want to introduce the orchard hay, ill take a look at those links it would be great to have a stock of several different dehydrated food for him to mix things up with!
 

Tom

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Awesome this is great I was really starting to stress about what to do thanks to winter, his diet is mainly weeds and grass as of a few days ago mixed with some Leafy greens. once he eats more grass I want to introduce the orchard hay, ill take a look at those links it would be great to have a stock of several different dehydrated food for him to mix things up with!
I've personally tried all of the above suggestions and love them. After an introductory period, all of my tortoises love them too. Don't be discouraged if they don't go crazy for all this new stuff the first few times they see it. Mine wanted nothing to do with the ZooMed pellets or with the Herbal hay when they first saw it, but once they realized it was food, they would seek them both out. They would eat all of the "food" and then they would go around and pick up all the herbal hay crumbs with their tongues like a frog lapping up flies.

Start slow with just tiny amounts of anything new mixed in with old favorites. It might take a couple of weeks in some cases, but its well worth the effort.
 

Ezarate

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Update on the enclosure. Due to covid I got laid off until further notice which put a huge hole in my budget. Instead of the pond liner which is 60$ I changed for a 10$ tarp, I know its not the same but it will work until I can save up the money. there's little space to work with since the enclose is the size of the room but I managed to tarp the enclosure in plastic, with 2 uv lights and 1 ceramic heat spot. I also installed a humidity monitor halfway in the middle and its staying at a nice 88%, it's so sealed just a few sprays of water keeps it good all day. which is good because the pump i got is too weak for the misting setup I built. But using a hand sprayer works just the same. To be honest I didn't know UV bulbs had to be replaced every 6 months. I've had the same one for a year or more, I'm glad tortellini is healthy, but now he has 2 uv lights and a window so he should be better than ever. I spent all day yesterday hopping between 4 stores, looking for Cedar mulch or cheap peat moss, but I didn't find anything, all of the shelves were empty. I was lucky to find Organic additive free soil at homedepot. 5 bags was enough to make it 4" deep, I still need another 4 bags to make it ideal but this will do for now. There is so much space for him to roam now that he doesn't even know what to do he just sits there and looks around. I want to make him somthing near the heat lamp that he can go into to sleep. Yes in the picture I tossed in green leaf, it was morning and its the first thing I toss in for him while I go outside to grab grass and dandelions for him.
 

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