Photos of Our Outdoor Russian Tortoise Enclosure and Garden

Yes, it could flood, but you can eliminate that issue by rebuilding it on top of a hill. Just add a few buckets of top soil.

You could still have an escape issue! I would suggest trenching about a foot deep around the outside walls and then fill that with concrete. The quik-crete stuff should work fine. The material cost would be very cheap.

Oxalis said:

Thanks, everyone! Wait till July -- I bet it'll be a jungle again!

I have a question (for anyone) regarding the tortoise hide. Is there a worry that it could flood? I plan to take him inside when it rains anyway; just curious though. Thanks!

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I was concerned about ours too, even though we have pretty sandy soil and flooding is uncommon, so I mixed some gravel in the top inch of the soil. But I will still be watching it carefully.

Oxalis said:

Sorry for the late reply! I plan on making the garden even better this year! I was wondering if you were referring to drilling holes into a terra cotta saucer. Is this easy; does it often cause the saucer to crack? Nesting two saucers sounds like a great idea as well!! Thanks again for the tip!

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You can use plastic or terra cotta saucers. I have been able to drill into the Terra cotta saucers w/o any problem. I suppose a relatively new/sharp drill bit is helpful.

Odin's Gma said:

I was concerned about ours too, even though we have pretty sandy soil and flooding is uncommon, so I mixed some gravel in the top inch of the soil. But I will still be watching it carefully.

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Sounds great! He'll be coming inside when it's rainy too.

Yey, the chicken wire finally came in to True Value, which we only picked because it worked out best for our enclosure size. We haven't put it up yet because we're also in the middle of landscaping the rest of our backyard... Anyway, although it was a bit cooler out this evening, but I couldn't resist taking Steve out to check on the progress of his tortoise castle; besides, he seemed restless! Of course, he went right for his cave to explore!!



He took a look around then immediately tried to start burrowing into the bricks!!


Then he took a look out at his kingdom.


Thought maybe he'd come out, but then he headed right back into his hide.


Here's the garden so far... only 2 more days till I can get my plugs in! I think Steve likes it so far.


Here's Stevie with his statue.


The enclosure from our upstairs window. You can see my lounge chair on the deck, Stevie's water dish (have to wash it a bit more first), the compost bin in the top left corner, and a couple garden spaces where we've put down pine bark mulch. Not bad, eh?

When you put the chicken wire up, if you are not able to pull it tight everywhere there is a tool that works great to tighten up any loose areas. It is a "cotter key extractor". (Insulators call them lacing needles), there is a couple designs (shapes). from my experience the one with the double bend is easier to work with, (probably because that's what I started with years ago) They both do the job. You just slide it under a wire and catch a wire towards the slack area and bring it towards the first wire and loop it over from underneath to hook it in place pulling the slack out. you can make it as taunt as you want. I have a hard time trying to explain things but if you have a lacing needle and some chicken wire it might make sense.

Steve's enclosure is coming along beautifully and he looks very impressed! I love the statue! I nearly picked one up myself the other day but managed to reign myself in, but..... I am running errands in a bit and you never know what fun stuff I will come home with for my little buddy.

Today's the big day! We picked up our plants from the farmers market and we'll attaching the chicken wire and making the enclosure door. The plant guy forgot to bring out the cactus so I will have to pick that up another day. I'm having fun with the staple gun! XD Here's the chicken wire so far:





And our little plugs:


I'll be removing a lot of the dirt before planting these, but they were grown without chemicals so I'm not too worried. More photos to come later tonight!!!

That is going to be wonderful! I can't wait to see it all planted and grown later in the summer! (mine too )

Here is our enclosure with the door on!! Whoo!! My boyfriend is amazing for building this!



Here we've added the chicken wire on the door, but we're pooped now! We spent about 7 hours in the yard so now it's movie time! Tomorrow we'll finish covering the enclosure with chicken wire, and now that all the plants are in, the rabbits will keep out of Steve's food.

Steve has been having quite the crazy time pacing back and forth along the north wall; not sure why... He's even made his own path! Meanwhile, I finished planting all of my seeds today, and I hope they sprout very soon! We plan to put up the remaining chicken wire tomorrow after work since it should be a bit cooler then (plus our feet will have more time to rest!). It is quite humid and unpleasant now.



The Michigan native plants seem to quite happy to be in the ground already, as they should be tolerant of our layers of clay and unpredictable climate! Below you can see a geranium bud that I noticed earlier today. It's already starting to open now!

One suggestion that I would make would be to round off the corners so he does not dig there or climb, they can climb up the 90° angle very easily. Here is a picture of what I mean.

leigti said:

One suggestion that I would make would be to round off the corners so he does not dig there or climb, they can climb up the 90° angle very easily.

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Very cool, thanks! We've been thinking about what we want to do in the corners, and we'll probably just put a small board across it. We just have to get around the 4'' x 4'' posts. I was mostly concerned about getting the chicken wire up since I know that rabbits live under our back deck and didn't want them to eat all my baby plants!

I took those pictures before all the weeds grew in. Now it looks like a rain forest and I'm going to have to go pull half of them.

leigti said:

I took those pictures before all the weeds grew in. Now it looks like a rain forest and I'm going to have to go pull half of them.

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I hear that! I will have to keep an eye on the Testudo Mix this year so they don't get too messy like they did last summer. We built the enclosure taller for some of the plants though. I didn't want to restrain their growth.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone! So no work on Monday and an extra day to relax with the tortoise in the sunshine!

Steve has been doing a lot of pacing and running around in his enclosure, but I think once the plants get bigger, he will start paying more attention to those tasty treats! At least, that's what happened last year. So, like last year, I purchased another bag of organic compost manure to kick-start the plant growth. No pesticides here! I sprinkled the manure over the dirt (when Stevie was in his indoor enclosure) and we'll check up on it again soon. Steve is not one to eat his own substrate, so I'm too concerned about him with the manure, but I have been keeping an eye on him lately -- mostly to make sure that he doesn't eat the poor, tiny seedlings to the ground!!



Look at me, Mommy!!!



Here is our almost finished enclosure now, just after an evening watering. I just have to finish "stitching" together the sheets of chicken wire so everything will be closed. I'm about halfway done, but stitching the roof will be the hardest part... since it's 8 feet tall! Otherwise, I think it looks great! The chain was added to the door to help hold it together. I also put some extra plain dirt around the outside walls to cover up some of the ground (the level was too low).



And now that I am covered in dirt, it's off to a well deserved, cool shower and bedtime! Goodnight!

Looks really nice!! Kudos for having such a nice boyfriend!!

ALL DONE! It is completely finished! Today I finished "stitching" together all the sheets of chicken wire and added a few extra staples for good measure. The little dude is completely secure now. As you can see, we found some extra 1'' x 2'' boards to keep between the chicken wire holes that will help cap off the corners -- just in case. He has been trying to climb a lot the past couple of days and has been unsuccessful in getting off the ground at all.



Here's Stevie walking along the wall... again. You can see I have staples every so often in the top of the wooden board so it's all super secure!



And there's Steve enjoying the late afternoon sun before his mommy takes him inside for the night.



All finished!! Now for a celebratory drinkie: Cactus Juice!



And now to try to be patient as the plants grow!

It looks good. All my plants of come in now so I'm pulling half of them out this weekend. The poor tortoise can't even walk around there so thick. Now you can really get fancy with the enclosure. Try some logs or large rocks to make a site barriers. If he can't see from one end of the enclosure to the other it will feel much bigger to him. You can add dirt here and there to make some hills and varied terrain. My tortoise likes to dig under a large piece of bark. Russians seem to like to hike up and around and over things. It's good for them and keeps them a little entertained. I really like designing and fixing up the enclosures.

Nicely done!