5 tips when building an enclosure (outdoor)

Javk

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Sep 20, 2019
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Hello, members of the TFO, today, I am going to talk about some tips when making a tortoise enclosure. Enclosures you build yourself can be fun, satisfying, and you can build it just the way you like. However, it is not as simple as just slapping a few pieces of wood together. I can't tell you how many accidents my friends and myself had gone into due to a faulty enclosure. These include predators, escapes, sharp edges, incorrect placement of decor, and wrong material. Now, we will get into the 5 tips I will be sharing with you today.

Tip 1: When building an enclosure, don't use nails, use screws.

When building an enclosure, screws are a much better alternative. They provide a much more secure mounting of two pieces of wood and you can remove the screw and put it back in securely if you want to remodel the enclosure. In my earlier days of tortoise keeping, I just hammered nails in as I thought a drill was a waste of money. It ended up that through time, my sulcata tortoise actually tore the piece of wood out and escaped. That side of the enclosure, at 15 feet, was mounted by 32 nails, all which were ripped off the side of the enclosure by my adult sulcata tortoise. Yes, 32 nails, could not stand against the 80-pound pile of keratin and cuteness. Luckily, my whole property was surrounded by 2 fences (1 electric and 1 gate fence) so he did not go very far.

Tip 2: Use only WOOD for an enclosure, not plastic, not fibreglass, not glass, and certainly, NOT aluminium.

There is no debate about this, wood is the best material for an outdoor enclosure. Plastic, fibreglass, glass, and aluminium have a lot of reasons to be avoided. Firstly, these materials, do not allows heat to disperse, and they even reflect heat. With the sun beating down from the top and heat-reflective walls all around, you are essentially turning your enclosure into an oven, which can severely affect your tortoise. Secondly, these materials will restrict the airflow, causing any beneficial bacteria cultures, cleanup crews, and plants to die of suffocation.

Tip 3: Flooring

If you are only building an outdoor tortoise table, you can skip this, but if you are building a pen for a larger species, you have to be careful of flooring. Some of my fellow tortoise keepers always had tons of escapees on their tortoise ranch just because the big species (mainly sulcatas) would burrow out of their pen. The walls of the enclosure were already 4 feet deep into the ground but the sulcatas would just tunnel 6 feet deep and escape. Now, they were always easy to find because there was nowhere to hide in the Arizonian desert, however, getting a few 100-pound tortoises back was not an easy deed. One day, he got fed up and put down hardware cloth to keep them from burrowing out. In the end, a tortoise ripped out one of its claw trying to find another burrow as its claw caught on the mesh.

Tip 4: Always build a built-in hide in the enclosure

You might not see this tip a lot, but it is somewhat crucial if you have a relatively large species. Large tortoises can sometimes knock over their flowerpot hides or whatever when they are bulldozing around their enclosure during the day. However, they cannot right the hide on their own, leaving them to freeze at night, if you live in the colder regions, this is important. Tortoises might not get sick due to just one day, however, this is still a horrifying and sickly experience for them. With a built-in hide, this can be avoided and they will never have to go through this traumatic experience. The built-in enclosure does not have to be anything fancy, it can just be a piece of wood over a corner of the enclosure! (If you live in the cooler regions, you might want to include a CHE or RHP)

Tip 5: When putting decor, do not put any tall plants close to a wall and keep in mind chain link cannot stop them.

This should be a rule for building an enclosure. Despite their stubby legs and bulky shell, tortoises are surprisingly good climbers. They can even scale a plant close to the enclosure wall and escape with little trouble. When putting a plant close to a wall, make sure that the plant is your tortoise's length lower than the wall, this way, you can ensure that no escapes will occur by climbing. Secondly, chain link cannot stop tortoises, big or small. Small ones can climb it, and large ones bulldoze through it. Do not think that chain link can stop these little tractors.


That is it for my 5 tips when building an enclosure, hope it helped build you tortoise a safer, better enclosure.
 

Texastravis

Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Jul 14, 2010
Messages
60
Good tips and thanks! Although, I have never heard of a sulcata tortoise burrowing under a 4' deep fence and getting out. That tortoise is one of a kind! In fact, none of my sulcata burrows have ever gone down then back up, they always just go down so even if they burrowed "under" the fence, I have never worried.
 

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