My outdoor tortoise pen

[Tccarolina]

I renovated my tortoise pen last fall and reseeded it all with California native broadleaf weeds and wild flowers. Here it is a couple months ago. I have a couple rocks with a shallow depression that get dripped into twice a day for water, and I buried drip lines under the surface to allow the planted areas to be irrigated as needed. I will probably let the weeds dry out by mid-summer to simulate natural conditions. All 6 tortoises overwintered in the pen this year.
Winter

Here it is now.

Residents.
Trio of T. g. terrestris

and a Trio of T. h boettgeri

 

[Fernando]

Awesome pen! I'm jealous of all those weeds

 

[jeffbens0n]

Wow, awesome pen, lots of different terrain and things to explore! Your torts are lucky!

 

[Paige Lewis]

Great enclosure, they are going to have fun exploring!

 

[dmmj]

Nice looking pen

 

[Dr. Coffee]

It's a wonderland. Nice work.

 

[Tom]

Love your pen. I'm wanting some Eastern's myself. Where are you and how and where did they overwinter? Do you have a shelter for them? Did they dig in? I'm curious because I'd like to leave mine outside year round too, but I'm checking with people who know more than me on the feasibility.

 

[TortieLuver]

Wonderful area for a tortoise! Wow you got all those seeds to grow quite fast. Excellent job! I find the reseeding to grow fast and starting fresh is always a chore.

 

[CtTortoiseMom]

Wow, love it.

 

[Balboa]

That looks great!

 

[dmarcus]

Great pen and you can truly see the difference in the grass.

 

[Tccarolina]

Tom,
My Hermann's have hibernated here the past two years. They choose to dig down in the upper right corner of the pen picture. They dig down til soil covers them with about 2 inches above their carapace. It's heavier soil there then I would think is best, but they prefer it. It gets mucky wet all winter there, but no standing water due to the slope. I sculpted the whole pen to be a dry creekbed and its banks, so the water drains well, even with the heavy downpours we've had this winter. I am in Modesto, in the Central Valley. My average rainfall is about 12 inches, falling from November through May. It usually hits a low of 26-29 degrees a couple times a winter here. They came up this year in mid March.
Plants that provided themselves include filaree, malva, sowthistle, and burclover, and some others I can't identify. I seeded california poppies, baby blue bells, tidy tips, five spots, goldfields, and birds-eye gilia, and a few arroyo lupines.
Perrenials for food include california wild grape and california honeysuckles.
The pen is 3 years old, but I reshaped most of it to put in the dry creek last fall, seeded it with seeds ordered from Theodore Payne, and lots of rain this winter did the rest!
The big question I have is, if and when they start laying eggs, how will I ever find the nests?!?

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

Great pen, nice pictures!

 

[SnakeyeZ]

Gorgeous enclosure! I believe that's the BEST one I have seen. I want I want...

 

[Jacob]

nice beeen, one day i will build a nice pen for my baby!

 

[terryo]

Great enclosure. Any tort would love it!

 

[Tccarolina]

Here are a couple more. . .

They all hibernate in the upper part of this picture.

Next to it is my box turtle pen.

 

[dmarcus]

I’m sometimes jealous of the out door pens for some of the smaller torts. It does look very nice.

 

[Tom]

Tom,
My Hermann's have hibernated here the past two years. They choose to dig down in the upper right corner of the pen picture. They dig down til soil covers them with about 2 inches above their carapace. It's heavier soil there then I would think is best, but they prefer it. It gets mucky wet all winter there, but no standing water due to the slope. I sculpted the whole pen to be a dry creekbed and its banks, so the water drains well, even with the heavy downpours we've had this winter. I am in Modesto, in the Central Valley. My average rainfall is about 12 inches, falling from November through May. It usually hits a low of 26-29 degrees a couple times a winter here. They came up this year in mid March.
Plants that provided themselves include filaree, malva, sowthistle, and burclover, and some others I can't identify. I seeded california poppies, baby blue bells, tidy tips, five spots, goldfields, and birds-eye gilia, and a few arroyo lupines.
Perrenials for food include california wild grape and california honeysuckles.
The pen is 3 years old, but I reshaped most of it to put in the dry creek last fall, seeded it with seeds ordered from Theodore Payne, and lots of rain this winter did the rest!
The big question I have is, if and when they start laying eggs, how will I ever find the nests?!?

Thanks for the info. Very similar climate to mine so it should work fine for me here. I think you get just a little more rainfall, but I supplement with well water falling from the sky. Haha. I get all the same weeds you listed, but you lost me with most of the other stuff. Now I'll just have to look those up. Good question on the eggs. Don't have the answer, but my sulcatas act a little different when they are about to lay and then I just start watching them all the time and look for any sign of disturbed dirt followed by a return to "normal" behavior. Mine tend to look for wetter areas of dirt, so on the downhill side of any slope. Good luck.

 

[Missy]

Fantastic pen. I find it funny that we all adore weeds when most people hate them. LOL