Andy Couch
New Member
We adopted a 10-year-old Russian male last year that had lived his whole life in a 40-gallon glass terrarium. We immediately replaced that with two connected Zoo Med Tortoise Houses, which gave him more than twice the space. But after listening to him dig to get out all winter, we finally built him a proper 12'x8' outdoor enclosure.
We were afraid of leaving him outside unattended, so we built a lid system to protect him from potential predators. We also dug out the area and lined it with chicken wire and stapled it to the sides before filling with dirt to prevent him from digging out.
We used to have a small shrub in the area, so we re-purposed a tree bubbler from our irrigation system that was already there to automatically refill his pond. Access to the garden full of tortoise friendly greens is temporarily blocked to allow the roots to get a little stronger before we let him trample it.
We tried to make sure all materials used inside the enclosure were listed as organic or non-toxic.
As we're still relatively new tortoise parents, I'm sure there's something we missed, but he seems much happier now than he ever was inside.
P.S. - We live in Texas, so we have some time before we need to worry about a heated house for the winter, but that's probably the next addition.
We were afraid of leaving him outside unattended, so we built a lid system to protect him from potential predators. We also dug out the area and lined it with chicken wire and stapled it to the sides before filling with dirt to prevent him from digging out.
We used to have a small shrub in the area, so we re-purposed a tree bubbler from our irrigation system that was already there to automatically refill his pond. Access to the garden full of tortoise friendly greens is temporarily blocked to allow the roots to get a little stronger before we let him trample it.
We tried to make sure all materials used inside the enclosure were listed as organic or non-toxic.
As we're still relatively new tortoise parents, I'm sure there's something we missed, but he seems much happier now than he ever was inside.
P.S. - We live in Texas, so we have some time before we need to worry about a heated house for the winter, but that's probably the next addition.
