Semi-Underground Russian Box

[Tom]

I can only imagine the rolling eyes... "Tom is at it again..."

It gets very hot here in the summertime. Every day is near 100 and sometimes its over 110. In winter, most nights are in the 30s and occasionally we dip into the 20s. For fossorial species like sulcatas, Desert Tortoises, and in this case Russians, going underground offers an ideal escape from temperature extremes.

Sooooooo, I've been mentally designing this contraption for a long time and finally got it built and installed. Its not pretty, but the entire thing was built with recycled wood and scraps from other building projects.

Here is the hole I dug for it to drop into:

Here is the box itself. Its about 21" tall and there is welded wire closing off the bottom.

Here I have filled the inside with the native dirt and topped it off with the coir that used to be in their inside enclosure. The bottom of the door is about 8" from the bottom of the box where the wire is, so they have plenty of room to dig in if they wish, but they can't go too far because of the wire on the bottom. I've attached the lid and done the weather stripping by this point too.

Here is the door/tunnel from tortoise perspective before the rain cover went on and everything is buried.

After burial:

Here is the shade/rain cover that covers the tunnel entrance to keep the rain out. This is a critical part of the whole operation for obvious reasons. When I install these things I check the level-ness of it all and make sure rain run-off will run downhill and not back into the tunnel entrance.

Here is the underside of it:

Here I have some dirt on it now:

Here is a view showing how the underground shelter sits within the rest of the enclosure:

And of course we have to show the torties using the new facilities:

Hope you enjoyed my little tour. Comments and questions welcome.

 

[lynnedit]

I love the step by step! Looks perfect and obviously has benefited by your previous experience.

(Oh, and I only rolled one eye).

 

[lismar79]

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

 

[wellington]

No eye rolling. Just a big smile. I have been wanting to build my Russian a underground hide, but can't get a handle on keeping rain out. Because I haven't been able to figure it out, I have not been able to leave him outside at night, as you know.
So, I will be coping this idea, thanks
Now my question. Goes back to the temp/humidity pm I sent you last week. If I build one of these in the sunny part of Toto's enclosure, it would be cooler then the temp above ground. Do you happen to know what the temp in the box gets too at night, that's if you are having cooler nights? I figure, being underground, it would stay warmer at night then the above ground temp, which has been low to mid 60's. However, the humidity goes quite high at night too. I'm thinking though, it being underground, the humidity would not really fluctuate as much as above ground.
Thoughts?

 

[Subersibo]

That's so cool! Can't wait to build one like it.

 

[littleginsu]

I let out an audible giggle at the overhead shot of the torts in the box!

 

[shellfreak]

Fantastic idea. Great work Tom

 

[christinaland128]

How coOL!

 

[Tom]

No eye rolling. Just a big smile. I have been wanting to build my Russian a underground hide, but can't get a handle on keeping rain out. Because I haven't been able to figure it out, I have not been able to leave him outside at night, as you know.
So, I will be coping this idea, thanks
Now my question. Goes back to the temp/humidity pm I sent you last week. If I build one of these in the sunny part of Toto's enclosure, it would be cooler then the temp above ground. Do you happen to know what the temp in the box gets too at night, that's if you are having cooler nights? I figure, being underground, it would stay warmer at night then the above ground temp, which has been low to mid 60's. However, the humidity goes quite high at night too. I'm thinking though, it being underground, the humidity would not really fluctuate as much as above ground.
Thoughts?

With the damp coir, humidity is hovering around 75%. If I didn't intentionally wet it, it would be as dry it is as outside down there, which is VERY dry here. I would think you could just leave yours dry.

The ambient above ground temp last night only dropped to 68. The recorded low inside the box was 75. Ambient highs are climbing to around 98 right now and the high in the box was only 81.

I don't have the vinyl flaps in place yet either. I want to let them get used to coming and going before I put those up. Once I do install the flaps, temps will fluctuate even less from day to night in the box.

 

[Carol S]

Great job Tom. Those little Russians look so familiar LOL.

 

[wellington]

That sounds great. I think this could work here. I will check temps before I would leave him over night, but your lows
Isn't off much from what we are getting. Your day highs are of course higher then ours, we've been mostly mid 80's, except today, which didn't make it over 67. The humidity is more my concern. If I can keep it low in there, then it would work great. Thanks Tom.

 

[tinkerbell1189]

Wow that's amazing, really good idea

 

[Tom]

I knew it would take a little time to get them all using the new shelter. On night one, I put them all in the box after dark and they stayed until morning. On night two, 4 out of 6 put themselves away. From night three until tonight, 5 out of 6 put themselves away. And tonight... drumroll please... ALL 6 put themselves away! Woo Hoo!

Life is SOOOOOOOO much easier when your tortoises put themselves away at night.

(You hear that all my leopards? You CAN put yourselves away, ya know.)

 

[bouaboua]

I'm so glad that you are "at it again". This post and other thread regarding the insulated boxed give me so much idea that I can use for my torts this winter or any time at out door.

Great thread and Thanks.

 

[Tom]

They are all putting themselves away at night every night now. The new shelter must be to their liking.

 

[tortadise]

Awesome. Now you need to install some wireless cameras in those boxes to watch them from afar.

 

[Abdulla6169]

They are all putting themselves away at night every night now. The new shelter must be to their liking.

Do you think there's a good way to insulate the container? The temperatures here in summer easily reach more than 110 F...

 

[Tom]

Do you think there's a good way to insulate the container? The temperatures here in summer easily reach more than 110 F...

Putting it in the ground like that DOES insulate it. The lid also has 1.5" foil backed rigid foam insulation sandwiched between two layers of plywood. It sometimes gets 115 at my place too. Normal summer days are around 100. The inside of this box stays in the low to mid 80s on those days.

 

[Amanda81]

This underground box is interesting. I would really like to try this for the Sudans. If I buried everything but the lid, insulating it and weather striping the edges so the lid sealed good I'm sure it would be excellent for summer months but in the winter, would I need to add a heat to it? Their box is 2' tall so I would estimate they would only be maybe 1' - 1.5' underground by the time I added substrate to it.

 

[Tom]

You wouldn't need to add so much substrate sulcatas don't "dig in" the way russians do. Sulcatas burrow. The buried box serves as "the burrow", so no need to provide them with digable substrate inside the "burrow".

You would definitely need heat in a TN winter. Not sure this would work at all for that application. I think its too cold there. You'll need a box with an insulated floor.