Cleaning outdoor pens

[way2gfy]

Do you have to clean an outdoor pen? I mean a DT lives in the desert and no one cleans up after them (except birds or other wild animals) but should we spot clean in captivity?

Just wondering if everyone else cleans theirs.

Thanks.

 

[chadk]

Depends. In the wild, they can travel great distances and the feces and urates are exposed to rain, sunshine, etc. If you have a big enough pen and you don't really notice any accumilations, I would not worry to much about it.

My 35lb sulcata leaves good sized droppings in his yard. Since my yard has so much fresh green grass and weeds, his poo is wet and not fun to step in. So I go through every few days with a shovel and toss the poo in my compost bin or into the bushes.

My box turtles on the other hand have a smaller space, but still big for their relative size. All I do for them is clean up old food and spray their water dishes before adding fresh water. Then I remove the water dishes every few weeks and clean with bleach or something.

Where I live, I get a good mix of sun and rain this time time of year. That tends to clean things up naturally. But your situation may be different.

 

[Yvonne G]

Even though my pens are fairly large for the size and amount of tortoises and turtles they contain, I still pick up the poop every day. I have a large blue dust pan with a long handle and a rake in each pen. Every morning when I go out to feed, I walk around the pens and pick up poop. The box turtle enclosure is the only one I can't see the poop to pick it up. But every so often, about three times a summer, I take a shovel and turn over the dirt, then rake it smooth. This serves two purposes...finding worms and burying the unseen poop.

Yvonne

 

[Maggie Cummings]

I clean Bob's poop several times a day. It's on clover and lawn so it is very obvious when he leaves something, so I pick it up throughout the day...

 

[katesgoey]

I pick up poop daily and use a clorox water solution to clean my tortoises sheds several times a year. IMO this helps reduce bacteria and parasites.

 

[Millerlite]

depends, bigger tortoises you might want to because there poop is so much bigger almost dog like... with yards they tend to build up and you will have too. With smaller species or babies you don't really have to because its harder to see the poop. Just do what you think needs to be done, if it looks like its building up then its time to clean.