Building an out door enclosure. Tips appreciated!

[fgately]

I am building an outdoor enclosure for my three Russians (one male two females). I need to make it pretty secure, as we are getting dogs soon, and we do have coyotes and other critters in the neighborhood. I will dig down and bury some concrete blocks to act as a digging in or out barrier. I will also make a hinged cover with a couple of top doors for access. I plan on it being approximately 2 1/2 to 3 feet wide by 12 feet long. I want the enclosure to be this long for a couple of reasons.

First, I want it easy to partition the enclosure so I can grow some fresh food for them on one closed off end. Once the weeds and grasses are off to a good start, I will let them into the new food filled area. Tort Buffet!

Second, it will also be easy to separate the torts if I ever need to. If we ever get baby torts, this will also be a great way to instantly make a baby tort nursery.

The enclosure will get full morning sun, and will start to be shaded after about 12:30 in the afternoon. Of course I have some great ideas for hides and shaded areas. I want to make the east facing side and the top out of some sort of heavy duty screen material.

1) Any tips or suggestions about the concrete barrier? How deep should it be?
2) Any thoughts or suggestions on the screen material?
3) Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[pochito]

sound perfect! it's good that you have it well planned. good luck and show us the pictures

 

[jeffbens0n]

The depth of one concrete block will be plenty, 8 inches or so. It sounds great the only thing I might change is to make it a little wider. If you could make it 6 feet wide it would give them a lot more room, and the more room they have, the less likely they are to pace the sides trying to get out. For the screen material I would suggest something like a 1/2 inch hardware cloth, it will be thick enough to keep out predators but also have large enough spacing to let most of the UV rays through.

 

[lynnedit]

Yes, I used the hardware cloth, 1/2", for my screen tops and it is great. Sun gets through fine. It is very stiff and secure. If you find it in 3' wide rolls, that would be easy for making the screens.
If you did decide to go 6' wide (depends on what room you have), you could make the screens 3' wide x 4' or 6' long and have a beam going down the middle to support them. It is really helpful to be able to get to every spot in the enclosure without doing too many gymnastics.