Getting a redfoot in less than a week, critique my enclosure idea!

byviolet

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Jan 27, 2014
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136
Hi guys, so I'm getting a redfoot in a week and I've gathered all the materials I need for my enclosure. As it is my first tortoise that I'm getting I want to make sure that I'm doing everything right.

So here's my idea:

Take out middle drawers of an old dresser (leaving the end ones to have more of a "closed chamber" to regulate humidity better), and filling the base with a pond liner. Then, I fill it up with topsoil. The dresser is around 3x5 and it is for a 3 month old redfoot.

Have 3 flower pots for hides, and one of the flower pot bases for a watering dish. I'll fill the hides as well as the surface with sphagnum moss. I'm planning on misting 2x a day, either manually, or setting my humidifier on for 30 minutes twice a day.

use clamp lamps to hang 1. a CHE over the hides (since I assume humid and cold is bad), and a reptisun 10.0 over the rest of the tank. I plan to have them on for 12 hours a day and shut them off at night. Not too sure if it will get too cold without the CHE so if any of you guys know just tell me! Also thinking of just hanging an incandescent light bulb too but I'm not sure at this point yet if it's needed or not.

grab some dandelion weeds from outside, some other weeds I can find and plants. Chia seeds maybe?

That's about it, if I missed anything please let me know!
 

wellington

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I would do two hides, not three. Leaving more room for walking. Be sure to keep the top layer of substrate dry, RF are more prone to shell rot then a lot of others. Also, do a test run of the temps and humidity before your RF arrives. This way you will know if you need the CHE on at night or the extra bulb. Good luck, congrats and don't forget to share pics with us. Btw, the rest sounds good to me. Also, check out the tortoiselibrary.com. It's a members site and great RF info
 

byviolet

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
136
I would do two hides, not three. Leaving more room for walking. Be sure to keep the top layer of substrate dry, RF are more prone to shell rot then a lot of others. Also, do a test run of the temps and humidity before your RF arrives. This way you will know if you need the CHE on at night or the extra bulb. Good luck, congrats and don't forget to share pics with us. Btw, the rest sounds good to me. Also, check out the tortoiselibrary.com. It's a members site and great RF info

okay, I just thought because 3x5 is rather large for a little redfoot that I could have more hides. Also, how do I keep the top layer of substrate dry while still maintaining humidity? I was planning on just making the whole enclosure rather humid -- so should I just make the hides humid?

And thanks for the suggestion!
 
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