Turbo ran away this weekend...

[erdavis]

My enclosure is what I see many people do...just turn 4 8x8 log/board things into a square enclosure. I have been using it for a couple months, sometimes I even leave to go to school for about 3 hours with him out there.
On Friday I put him out there while I took a test online. An hour later I went to check on him... he was gone.
I looked. My mom looked. My dad looked. My best friend looked. We looked for about an hour. We raked the whole yard, nothing found.
It was starting to get dark... at what point do you stop looking for your tort?.. I never wanted to stop looking but I KNEW that there was no hope in finding him as I had already looked all over my yard and my neighbors' yards.
We have about 3 steps leading up to our porch. underneath each step it is hollow and theres just pineneedles under there. Everytime I walked by it while I thought to look there. But then I told myself that was silly because there is no way he could climb up there.
After about an hour of looking I was going to go inside for a break, on my way up I decided to look and..... there was Turbo! taking a nap underneath the top step!

from now on I am not leaving turbo outside by himself and I am starting on working on fixing an enclosure that he cant get out of.
but PLEASE let this be a lesson learned to all of you... Turbo is only about 3in long, not big at all. He climbed over the logs that were the walls of his enclosure. And then he climbed three stair steps! i never thought a tortoise could be so good at climbing!
anyways, don't underestimate your tort! tort proof your enclosure NOW!

just thought I'd share

 

[nicoleandrocky]

haha! at first i thought this was going to be a sad ending
so glad it wasn't!!! tortoises can be so crafty (and crazy!) glad he's safe

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

So glad it all worked out OK!

 

[Tom]

Have we seen enclosure pics? Do you know what part of the design failed? Often its the corners. "Cap those corners.", goes the saying...

 

[Snapper925]

Glad he is safe now!

 

[Laura]

post pics..
also.. is this in your front yard or back yard?
any dogs?

 

[JoesMum]

I'm glad this has a happy ending... You had me worried! I remember the heart stopping time Joe visited next door thanks to a fox digging an escape tunnel for him. Luckily his hatred of the lawn mower called him out of his hiding place.

Torts are definitely climbers. Some species are worse than others, but given the opportunity they will go explore.

Some chicken wire across the top of your enclosure may be all you need to restrain yours. My garden has 6 foot fences, checked daily for tunnelling at the bottom; even Joe can't get over those fortunately!

 

[Weda737]

I want to see the steps he got into! wow, little troublemaker.

 

[Jacqui]

Where there is a will, a tortoise can always find a way. Glad this time it worked out ok.

 

[mary t]

Love that it is a happy ending, and must say laughed when you said raked the yard looking for him but I don't have experience with a little one. Mine is 12 inches and 14 pounds but it's amazing when you loose sight of them how fast they blend into the yard.. My heart skips a beat every time... Thanks for sharing and good luck with a new enclosure.. We took out the corners in our enclosure per toms advise, used 4 of the wood blocks stacked and reinforced with rebar.. Good luck

 

[erdavis]

Have we seen enclosure pics? Do you know what part of the design failed? Often its the corners. "Cap those corners.", goes the saying...

Tom this is his enclosure

I do think he climbed over a corner. Since he's gotten out, I see him trying to look over/put his front too feet over the far right corner where his "mud bath" is. What does capping the corners mean and how can I do it? He will be in this enclosure(suprivised only) for about another week until I fix it up or completely make a new one(i just made another post about this).

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post pics..
also.. is this in your front yard or back yard?
any dogs?

It is my backyard. I have three large dogs(ranging from 70lbs to 130lbs) My dogs are allowed in my backyard, however the dogs have their own fenced in portion. If you look in this pic, you can see the fence that keeps the dogs on their side. Turbo actually must have crawled under this fence, because that is where the stairs are. At first I was thinking that once he got over, a dog could have picked him up and walked him up the stairs, however the dogs were at the park when this happened.
I am kinda happy about the situation though. Because
1) I learned a lesson!
2) When I looked under the stop step to get Turbo I saw that the step was rotting and took it down before it gave up on someone!

Here is the pic that you can see the fence

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Love that it is a happy ending, and must say laughed when you said raked the yard looking for him but I don't have experience with a little one. Mine is 12 inches and 14 pounds but it's amazing when you loose sight of them how fast they blend into the yard.. My heart skips a beat every time... Thanks for sharing and good luck with a new enclosure.. We took out the corners in our enclosure per toms advise, used 4 of the wood blocks stacked and reinforced with rebar.. Good luck

I didn't know what to do! Before I set up this enclosure I just let him walk around the yard while I did my HW out there with him. I would look at my work for 20 seconds and then lose him in the grass and the few leaves we have. I thought I was just overseeing him!

 

[JoesMum]

I'll be honest and say that the sides of the enclosure are too low in my opinion.

They look about 3-4 inches high. You need to get the sides up to around 8 inches high to prevent escape.

 

[erdavis]

I'll be honest and say that the sides of the enclosure are too low in my opinion.

They look about 3-4 inches high. You need to get the sides up to around 8 inches high to prevent escape.

I'm in the process of making his new enclosure! That will have higher sides and a wire top