Help with a out door box

[Jc918]

I am going to be building a out door pen. I want it to be nice but also the cheapest way Any ideas and my biggest question is does the bottom of the box need to have a screen to keep him from digging out ? There's a TON of cats and wild animals in my area so I want to make sure he's safe. Can someone post some plans for me

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi jc918:

I don't believe you've ever told us your name or where you are.

Also, what kind of tortoise are you building an outside enclosure for?

I really like to use cinder blocks. Squamata put up some pictures either yesterday or the day before of an outside enclosure he's building. Quick and easy with cinderblocks.

 

[Jc918]

My name is JC and my Russian's name is "Mr Turtle".

As far as the outside pen goes I need something that is not a eye sore. I live in a nice mobile home community and the park rules are pretty strict. I want to make sure that no one is going to complain about my box. I got a idea to try and blind it with my house. Will i need a screen on the bottom of the box ? My little guy seems to be a digger

 

[Angi]

Where do you live? Costco has a nice raised garden you should check out. It is $99.99 and is made out od molded plastic made to look like stone. It looks easy to assemble.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi JC:

It has been my experience that they don't dig to escape, but they dig to bury themselves. Trouble is, if they have dug next to the fence, Russians don't necessarily back up to get out of their hiding place. They sometimes dig forward and upwards and might end up on the wrong side of the habitat. So, yes, you need to do something so that they can't dig out. But it doesn't have to cover the whole bottom. You just need to put something around the edges.

When I made my first Russian pen, I cut a long strip of chicken wire. My tortoise fence had posts at 8' intervals, so I cut a strip of wire 8' long and 6" wide. I bent the wire at 3" lengthwise into the shape of an "L". I dug a 3" deep trench all along the fence line, placed the chicken wire "L" into the trench and stapled the top edge of it to the bottom of the fence. Then I put the dirt back. So if the tortoise decided to dig, he couldn't get past the wire.

In the pictures that Squamata showed us, he placed plastic chicken wire all across the whole bottom of the pen, then put top soil over the whole pen.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Welcome.