Intermediate Red Foot Enclosure.

[Cuteyptooty]

I want to share my quick and easy tortoise enclosure. My 21 year old son and his tortoise live with me. The tortoise was originally housed in a clear rubbermaid container. He is very used to watching TV (he likes Family Feud), watching us, watching the dog. He is our first tortoise and we find him very social. So our challenge was to build an intermediate sized enclosure that he could see out of, but not clear glass because we understand that can stress them. We also have limited wood working tools. I ended up finding a rather inexpensive cold frame online. We bought and built it and put a plywood floor in. As the tortoise doesn't chew we waterproofed with a spray rubber and food safe silicon. Made sure there was absolutely no smell before substrate was added. A couple cup hooks for the lights. We were going to drill a hole for his mister but decided to just crack the top open for airflow on both sides and we put the mister tube over the backside. Whole project, not including substrate, less than $200 cad. We are going to purchase a larger water dish and make something to climb but I wanted to share what we made for others looking for a relatively inexpensive solution. This is sized to be an intermediate enclosure. He will definitely need one at least twice the size in a few years and my son will be on his own by then and hopefully have more space for an enclosure. Cold frames seem to come in many sizes so I don't see why a big enough one for a full sized wouldn't work for a red foot or smaller tortoise. Did we do ok? It's 35" by 31". Changes? Again we know this is an intermediate enclosure.

 

[Maggie3fan]

Sweet!!! I'm a Sulcata person and we always reccommend not to have that moss in a habitat as they might eat it and I guess it's not good for them. But I am sure some expert will show up and comment. So if they say that moss is alright, send me your address, that moss covers everything. in my yards, I'll send anybody some let me know.
Oh and I love your name

 

[Cuteyptooty]

Thanks so much! I'll check with my son about the moss. Our guy doesn't seem to eat it but hopefully someone who is more of an expert will have an answer weather or not we should use it. It's mostly for moisture. I love salcatas! Not enough room in my house and it's cold here in Canada otherwise we would probably have one.

 

[Maggie3fan]

Thanks so much! I'll check with my son about the moss. Our guy doesn't seem to eat it but hopefully someone who is more of an expert will have an answer weather or not we should use it. It's mostly for moisture. I love salcatas! Not enough room in my house and it's cold here in Canada otherwise we would probably have one.

Mine are outside. Only box turtles and water turtles in the house

 

[Cuteyptooty]

We could only have one outside in the summer. There's a guy here who gave his sulcata a bedroom. He takes it to PetSmart in the winter to walk around for exercise. In the summer you can see him walking downtown with his owner. He knows his route. He even waits for walk lights! So smart!