New Enclosure Questions

[grettas mom]

I have a 6 inch red foot tortoise and my dad and I are starting to build her a new tortoise table and I was just wondering if a 2.5ft x 6 ft table would be ok for her. We plan on starting it this weekend and I would like to make sure that this will be a large enough enclosure for Gretta.

 

[Candy]

That's the size of Dale's that my husband built and Dale's 7 inches long. He seems to love it in there. He seems to move around nicely and not be cramped. Can't wait to see the pictures when you and your dad are done.

 

[fhintz]

Themistocles is just under 7 in. SCL and I have her in a 1.5 ft. x 6 ft. enclosure. She's pretty active in there. I think it would be better if mine was a bit wider, but you're doing well with an extra foot there.

IIRC, I've seen it posted that you should have 1 sq. ft. of space for each inch of tortoise, and yours would be a bit more than twice that, so it sounds good.

Happy building!

 

[grettas mom]

Im happy to hear that our plans should work. I cant wait for Gretta to get her new enclosure. I will be sure to post pics when it is all finished

 

[Redfoot NERD]

I happen to believe that 2sq. ' per inch would ba a lot better! Keep in mind they are not done growing at 6-7". They could easily grow another inch per year for the next 4-5 years.. then taper off in growth rate. That's what I personally have observed for Northerns and cherryheads.

NERD

 

[Tom]

Its big enough, but bigger is better. Why not just go 8 feet, instead of lopping two feet off of your plywood?

Of course, I also think they should have horse pasture sized outdoor pens, too.

 

[Stephanie Logan]

Taco seems very comfortable in her 2'x6' double-wide tortoise house from Zoomed.

Happy building! How nice of your dad to help you build Gretta some new digs.

Roachman has a good point though, if you can fit it into your alloted space.

 

[grettas mom]

The problem is if I go with 8 feet, I wont have any space for the enclosure...unfortunately. Otherwise, I would give her tons more space.

 

[llamas55]

It's tough. I just finished maybe 5 months ago a new enclosure about 4.5'x3 maybe, but then a humidifier took a significant footprint on the substrate, and she grew, and now I am adding tort #2 and am rebuilding already, as Terry said, but if you're out of room, you're out of room.

I think I found a sliver of bathroom I can rededicate to a 7' length, hope so, been all but ready to ship my couch out and replace with couch size habitat.

As Amanda Ebenhack says in her Redfoot book, a life in a tub is not a happy situation for a tort so go as big as you can (same as motto for a parrot cage).