maddie's underground split room plan home

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boutselis

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Maddie's burrow collapsed 2 times over a period of months during heavy rains. I felt bad for her doing all that work for nothing. I think they have some sort of instinct to be at the entrance of the burrow when its raining because every time it was raining hard she would be half in and half out and would even fall asleep there. I dug up the area where the burrow entrance was and sunk some posts into the ground and lined it with PT ply wood. The entire thing is about 66" wide by 60" long and around 16" deep. there is a partition in the center so the burrow has 2 chambers. the lid is hinged so it can be opened. at night you always find her all the way around the corner and in the very back. In the middle of the day she prefers the first chamber.

I found this behavior interesting:

Before I back filled the pit up against the walls I put here near the entrance to see if she would use it. She went in. took a nap but later I found her out and she seemed to be examining the area that was all dug up. It was getting late so I put her back in. the next day she was back out and seemed to be examining the area again. this happened 5 times and she was always sitting at a different vantage point. It appeared she didn't like the looks of the space between the dirt and the walls (just my guess) so I filled it all in and mounded up the dirt so it would shed water away from the burrow.

That was the last time I saw here inspecting the area. I guess she knows what she needs in a home and wasn't going to live in one that was un finished. Since then she has modified the opened some but that is all. Occasionally I plan to put some excess dirt in the burrow so she can clean it out and it will seem more natural to her. Satisfy that urge to dig.
 
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Tom

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Very interesting. So does it flood when it rains? Where are you? Do you heat it for winter?
 

tortoise-kid

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Oh wow, that looks awesome! I hope everything works out and that Maddie loves it (which of course she well)!
 

boutselis

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Tom said:
Very interesting. So does it flood when it rains? Where are you? Do you heat it for winter?

We have not had a big rain yet but I have sloped the ground pretty good and shaped the mound to shed the water away. We are in florida. Maddie will have a heat lamp on for most nights in the winter but on the nights it gets in the 40's (usually seldom) she will come inside the house along with out lepard - olivia. Seeing maddie is now over 60 lbs thats gonna be a pain but you do what you have to.
 
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