Russian habitat inside African enclosure

[AZTgirl]

Hello all...I am new to owning tortoises and appreciate all I have learned on this site. The photo below shows the habitat we built for our new, 3yr old African Sulcata, MissT. A few weeks after we got her, we also acquired a Russian. I learned enough to know not to let them interact/live in the same habitat so we had Tank (the Russian) in a different part of the yard. However, the place we had him in initially was infested with black ants so I built the inner enclosure you see marked below and he now lives inside (but not with) MissT. We are in AZ and one of the main reasons we did this was to take advantage of the shade and tree in her area.

Long term, what are the issues that housing them this close together is likely to cause? I am very careful when I work with them (soaking and feeding)...I rinse my hands between working with each one...I don't dump the Russian's soak water in the African's habitat area...of course I do not let them see each other or interact in any way. Thanks for any feedback.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

Every thing y’all are doing sounds perfect. Keep up the sanitary activities y’all are doing and this should be fine. Sometimes one or the other will burrow under the fence line so you’ll need to keep an eye on that.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome.

You might not win the award for the most bio-secure enclosure set up of the year, but I think this should be fine. I'd be comfortable with a set up like this, and it sound like you are well aware of the risks and what you can do to mitigate them.

Beautiful enclosure by the way. I'd love to see more pics and learn how you built that awesome wall.

 

[AZTgirl]

Thank you, Tom and Cowboy Ken...

See below for pics of the wall. We dug a 12 inch footer and poured concrete. The habitat is about 94 linear feet. We put the cinder block two rows high and then colored stucco. We hired our neighbor to do most of the work although we helped. See some pics below.

When we started, we were planning to get 2 Russian females for the enclosure.Then, I realized that the torts were going to be too small to keep in an enclosure without a cover due to hawks, crows and owls in our area. We then started looking at Sulfates and a friend of a friend raises and homes the babies for free to good homes. So, we got 3 year old MissT for free. She is very curious about the new structure in her area. Every night now for the past 4 nights I go out at dark and she is burrowed at the corner of it so I pick her up carefully and take her to her den.

 

[dmmj]

Wow, beautiful enclosure!

 

[AZTgirl]

I am not sure how it will work once the Sulcata gets to full size but we will see...I can always use it for the smaller Sulcatas and figure something else out when MissT gets mature.

 

[Maro2Bear]

Don’t forget to build in a nice watering hole! All looking good there.

 

[AZTgirl]

Don’t forget to build in a nice watering hole! All looking good there.

yes...that is the part we have not quite figured out yet. Right now I have a shallow dish in the enclosure for during the day and I do nightly soaks (30 min) in another set of containers. I have adopted a "two soak container" method for when I just can't stand seeing her floating in her poo and pee any longer...I move her to the 2nd soaking container to finish out her bath time. LOL.

 

[Yvonne G]

yes...that is the part we have not quite figured out yet. Right now I have a shallow dish in the enclosure for during the day and I do nightly soaks (30 min) in another set of containers. I have adopted a "two soak container" method for when I just can't stand seeing her floating in her poo and pee any longer...I move her to the 2nd soaking container to finish out her bath time. LOL.

For my box turtle yards I scooped out a larger-than-I-wanted bowl in the dirt then poured redi-mix and spread it around, leaving a bit of a lip over the top edge. I'll see if I can find a picture of one of them:



This was the first one I made and it didn't turn out deep enough. The subsequent designs were perfect, but I don't have pictures of them.

 

[AZTgirl]

how do you clean the poo out of there? My Sulcata has a LOT of poo and I am not sure how to clean it out of a dish that would be permanent.

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

how do you clean the poo out of there? My Sulcata has a LOT of poo and I am not sure how to clean it out of a dish that would be permanent.

If you make the pond slightly larger than a shop broom you then simply brush it out and add clean water afterwards. I hope this explains it for ya.

 

[Grandpa Turtle 144]

 

[Sleppo]

Very cool enclosure!

 

[6strings]

Petco should sell enclosures like that.

 

[Yvonne G]

how do you clean the poo out of there? My Sulcata has a LOT of poo and I am not sure how to clean it out of a dish that would be permanent.

For a sulcata you net out the poop and discard. Then just sweep out the water with a broom. I use a regular broom, not a shop broom.