Mountain tortoise owners:

[gila-91]

Yvonne, thank you very much for your reply, that is very helpful and encouraging. I've admired this species for many years but hesitated because I don't have the indoor space for a permanent enclosure. I do have a large yard that I could build an enclosure in. My preference would be to have it entirely enclosed (chicken wire/hardware cloth or the like) as I have lost a few aquatic turtles to raccoons in the past. I am very familiar with all of those plants, so that should be fairly easy to replicate.

A few follow up questions.

Roughly how large are your pens?

Do you have more than one pig blanket in each shed, and are the sheds insulated at all?

How large is the smallest Mep that you allow outside year round?

Thanks again, and thanks for the invitation. I will check with you if I am heading down that way.

Sam

 

[Yvonne G]

The Mee yard is appx. 46'x32' (I've done this calculation in my head from memory, counting how many 8' sections of fence there are, so it may not be accurate) and the Mep yard is 54'x40'

There are two pig blankets on the walls of each side...so, 4 pig blankets in the shed.

Here's a link to the thread where I built the shed:

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-9523.html

I put the intergrades out 24/7 when they got to be about 12" SCL. Before that, they always came in at night.

 

[gila-91]

Thanks again for your help!

You say you put the intergrades out 24/7 at about 12 inches SCL, is that different from what you would do for the pure subspecies?

 

[Yvonne G]

No, didn't mean for it to sound as if I were picking on a particular species. They were just the ones that popped into my head to answer the question.

I have put the two SA leopards out permanently this summer, and they are a bit smaller than 12". One of them is about 7" and the other about 10".

I guess it all depends upon the individual tortoise. When they seem sturdy enough and self sufficient enough to live in the big boy habitat, they go out.

 

[gila-91]

Thanks again for all your help.