Tort Pen

[Marshman]

This is my new Tort Pen, My Tort and Boxie havnt moved in yet. got a couple things left to do. thought i share though and get any ideas for good plants to put in there.

http://i810.photobucket.com/albums/zz30/Marshman74/TortPen.jpg

 

[Millerlite]

nice, what else do you plan to add?

 

[Marshman]

Adding a bridge over the lillys and some grass. need some ideas on some good safe plants to add.

 

[Millerlite]

there are a bunch of plants you can add, i cant remember any of them ever, lol.. but someone will know. Grass would be cool, i would grow some weeds too, dandelions for the greeks.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Marshall:

I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm not an advocate of housing box turtles with tortoises from a different continent than the box turtles come from. Two main reasons:

Box turtles require a more humid, shady environment.
Chelonia from different continents come with pathogens (not necessarily parasites) that might make the other animal sick or dead.

I love your habitat. Its pleasing to the eye and looks like it has enough visual stimuli to keep the tortoise from becoming bored. You've done a great job building the pen. Some sort of bush next to the hiding place would be nice. Or even a potted plant on the roof of the hiding place. Good job!!

Yvonne

 

[Marshman]

Yeah definitely going to add a bunch of dandelions. My guys should enjoy this for the about 3 months of the year they get to live there

---

Hi Marshall:

I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but I'm not an advocate of housing box turtles with tortoises from a different continent than the box turtles come from. Two main reasons:

Box turtles require a more humid, shady environment.
Chelonia from different continents come with pathogens (not necessarily parasites) that might make the other animal sick or dead.

I love your habitat. Its pleasing to the eye and looks like it has enough visual stimuli to keep the tortoise from becoming bored. You've done a great job building the pen. Some sort of bush next to the hiding place would be nice. Or even a potted plant on the roof of the hiding place. Good job!!

Yvonne

Even tho its raining here you didn't rain on my parade. All advice is good advice. When i got these guys from a local Reptile park they were housed together. they had them there for over a year and i figured that they would be ok for there summer months outside.

 

[Millerlite]

i dont know, mixing speicies is a tough subject, i've seen it work before, and i've seen very bad things coming out of it. Do you keep them together indoor? Like EMys said it would be tough to keep the microclimates good for both,

 

[Marshman]

I did for the first couple of months i had them. but not anymore.but i was hoping with it being outdoors and i not able to control the microclimates in wouldnt matter as much. for it for summer use only.

 

[Maggie Cummings]

It is never a good idea to mix species. Your box turtle needs a moist very humid environment and your Greek needs a dryer environment. They might not have passed pathogens but they need different environments, you need to separate them. And I keep a colony of box turtles and I can pretty much say that your fence would not keep my box turtles from escaping. Box turtles are good climbers and I bet yours will climb right out of that pen...and cuz I'm already telling you stuff...that pen is not safe from the dogs. I know you think your dogs wouldn't hurt the chelonia...
Here's a story for you.
A woman had a Gopherus agassizii...Calif Desert tortoise. After some years she got a dog, a Lab I think. Ten years pass with the DT and the dog sharing the yard together. Then one day the woman comes home and the dog had chewed off the tortoises left front leg. After 10 years of living together! There was no sign of the leg and no blood. The dog had licked the wound so much there was no blood. The woman takes the tortoise to her Vet and says she no longer wants the tort (after having her for 20 years) but she paid for the torts treatment. The Vet calls my sister's rescue and she takes the tort. I ended up with Mildred. A sweet wonderful dignified old lady tortoise. I had her for a year or so then I left her with my sister when I moved here to Oregon. That winter Mildred hibernated like normal and she was sick when she came up and died shortly after that.
But the point of this story is never think that your dogs won't hurt your tort, they will. They think a tortoise is a toy and they WILL chew on it...

Here's Mildred, we glued a furniture slide onto her plastron to help her get around...

What a dignified wonderful face...she LOVED strawberries...

 

[Marshman]

That's said for Mildred, My dogs have there own pen when there outdoors also my Tort pen is not done i'm building a canopy with chicken wire to go over the whole thing just in case of any predators. the walls around my pen are over a foot tall and dug down into hard South Dakota clay dirt. but i will deff watch him the first times out. Thanks for your advice. OH and by the way i known my jack Russell would love to get his paws on them. and thats why the dogs are locked inside or there pen when were not around

 

[Maggie Cummings]

Am I understanding the fence is a foot tall? It just doesn't look that tall. I don't think a box turtle could climb a foot tall fence. I am glad to hear you say your dogs are contained...I have just seen so many dog chewed tortoises I kinda cringe when someone says..."My dogs wouldn't hurt my tortoise"...yeah right... I appreciate that you are aware of that problem...

 

[Marshman]

Hey i appreciate any and all advice. It is hard to tell with angle i took that photo at. also my wife is a vet tech here and we see alot of bad things happen to both dogs and many reptiles. last year i took care of a very large sculata that was caught in a house hold fire. he made it thru the fire with some burns and respiratory problems i cared for him till the owners could get a new home.

 

[tortoisenerd]

I really love the pen!

But yes I agree think very long and hard about keeping two species together. Instances of it working out well and having both torts healthy in the long term is very slim, especially when the species do vary so much. They will both be happy and healthy with seperate enclosures and you can ensure that they will live a long time.