TortoiseForum.org

Hi everyone!

Over Christmas break, we built a new enclosure for our two Hermann's tortoises. It is similar to their old one but is a good bit larger. There is only one light fixture shown in the picture because it is a mercury vapor self ballasted lamp that provides both UVB and heat.

looks great. how big are they?

Im not seeing a pic

I'm not seeing a pic either

Sorry, I was posting from my cell phone and linking to the image on my own site but I forgot to disable the hotlink protection on my site. Working on it now

Looks good Jenny! Very very nice setup!

Great looking habitat. What size is the habitat?

TestudoGeek Wrote:looks great. how big are they?

One is just under four inches long and the other is about two and a half. This house should last them until we move- we are building a house on some acreage and once we move there the torts will have a nice outdoor enclosure.

Crazy1 Wrote:Great looking habitat. What size is the habitat?

It is 24" by 36" so that makes it six square feet and with the upstairs area they have over two more square feet up there. The old habitat had an upstairs too, and Virgil really loved it- he went upstairs to poop every day.

Someone is quite handy, luckily I have a professional carpenter in the house so I will definitely be using some of your ideas there in the future. Eventually I want a group of Egyptian Torts so this would be a handy setup for them that wouldnt take up a lot of space and still give them allot of room to muck around. Thanks for sharing!

Oh also is that a blue tinted stain you used? It looks really good!

JustAnja Wrote:Someone is quite handy, luckily I have a professional carpenter in the house so I will definitely be using some of your ideas there in the future. Eventually I want a group of Egyptian Torts so this would be a handy setup for them that wouldnt take up a lot of space and still give them allot of room to muck around. Thanks for sharing!

Oh also is that a blue tinted stain you used? It looks really good!

Anja,

Thank you and I would love to see your adaptations of my ideas. Collaboration can lead to some of the best designs. Yes, it is a blue tinted stain- I think the color was called Island Water (by Minwax- they have stains in all colors), and it was the first time we had ever used a colored stain but we were very happy with it. It has five coats of sealer over it to waterproof the enclosure as well.

This setup is an adaptation of our previous tortoise enclosure- I posted photos of it once before, but here they are again. It just got outgrown, but I am saving it to raise more hatchlings in the future as it worked out very well.

The new enclosure looks awesome!! Of course the old one looks great too, I love the upstairs. I have got to take some time and build a new enclosure, if my torts were on-line they would be so jealous. lol

I love your tort's new home!!

I want to make a nice new home for mine ( I like the second floor idea in yours) I was waiting until I got some money but unfortunately I was in a car accident yesterday and now will have to wait a little longer.
Yours looks great!

Oh yup I remember you posting the original enclosure I think. Both are very nice, and I am definitely going to have to look into the colored stains. I love that blue.

JustAnja Wrote:Oh yup I remember you posting the original enclosure I think. Both are very nice, and I am definitely going to have to look into the colored stains. I love that blue.

You will have to go to a place that mixes custom paints and get the Minwax tintable base stain. Then they mix up whatever color you want. We got ours at Home Depot, but I am sure they have it other places as well. Here's the color selection:

http://www.minwax.com/products/woodstain...-color.cfm