# Wetting down my Desert Tortoises burrow?



## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

It’s been really hot here for a while, in the triple digits and everything is just so, so dry. I know that it is cooler down inside, but I looked down the entrance to my desert tortoise’s underground burrow and its pretty much all fine dust. Anyway I want to spray water down the tunnel into the burrow while he’s out in the lawn and I’m pretty sure that as long as I don’t spray it down too much, the dry soil will absorb the water pretty quickly, but I just want to be sure its OK beforehand.

I used to have a squash garden above his burrow and one year the sprinkler system broke soaking his burrow. He came out soaking wet and I was afraid that he might end up with respiratory problems or something. Everything dried up by the end of the day and he was alright.

So is there a limit on how wet things can get before there is a problem? I just can’t imagine that breathing all that fine dust is too good for him.

Oh before someone asks, he is a CA Desert Tortoise.


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## dmmj (Jun 20, 2015)

I wouldn't do it myself, during the day it would be ok, I guess.But at night itstill gets pretty cool, you don't want it to be cold and weet, perfect breeding ground for an RI. I wouldn't do it, if it was me.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

dmmj said:


> I wouldn't do it myself, during the day it would be ok, I guess.But at night itstill gets pretty cool, you don't want it to be cold and weet, perfect breeding ground for an RI. I wouldn't do it, if it was me.


Thanks for your reply. I would not do it at night anyway and I was thinking when he first comes out in the morning.
There is a possibility of another problem and that would be bugs. This whole area is infested with Asian Cockroaches. People in the area call them "Water bugs", but I contacted an expert because they look like cockroaches to me. They live outside were there is water and they usually hide under the water bowl and around the fish pond. I'm afraid that they will congregate inside the burrow if it is damp and I just don't know if they will hurt the tortoise.


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## Kenno (Jun 20, 2015)

Johnnie, 

Does he always sleep in the burrow? My DT's sleep in many different spots in the yard, including the burrow, I usually check to see where they sleep each night. 

I ask because if he could be out of the burrow for a few nights, it could dry after you wet it down.


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## dmmj (Jun 20, 2015)

Burrows in the wild are shared by many different critters including spiders (eeeeeeeew).


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

Kenno said:


> Johnnie,
> 
> Does he always sleep in the burrow? My DT's sleep in many different spots in the yard, including the burrow, I usually check to see where they sleep each night.
> 
> I ask because if he could be out of the burrow for a few nights, it could dry after you wet it down.


He has been sleeping in the burrow every night. There was another place that he would sleep but only a couple of times. I removed everything he could climb under because I was afraid of a raccoon finding him.
I guess I could make him a temporary place for a couple of days until I'm sure it is dried out enough.


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## dmmj (Jun 20, 2015)

they tend to keep it moist in their burrows by you know......
They poo and pee in there..


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

dmmj said:


> Burrows in the wild are shared by many different critters including spiders (eeeeeeeew).


I have plenty of black widows and I'm sure they are also in the burrow. Hmm, now that I think about it, I wounder if the black widows will eat the cockroaches.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

dmmj said:


> they tend to keep it moist in their burrows by you know......
> They poo and pee in there..


I haven't thought about that and perhaps you are right about that.


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## Keith D. (Jun 20, 2015)

I wouldn't soak it for sure, if anything maybe a quart of water down the hole would be more then enough for a long while. It also depends if he is a adult and the burrow is large or if he is still small and the burrow is small. If the burrow is large a quart of hot water would work nicely if its small u could do like 8 oz of hot water. I would do it first thing in the morning when he comes so it has time to dry up a bit, the main thing is you don't want him sitting in water or mud. Oh forgot to ask, where are u located, I am in SW AZ and its been getting 115+ here.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 20, 2015)

Keith D. said:


> I wouldn't soak it for sure, if anything maybe a quart of water down the hole would be more then enough for a long while. It also depends if he is a adult and the burrow is large or if he is still small and the burrow is small. If the burrow is large a quart of hot water would work nicely if its small u could do like 8 oz of hot water. I would do it first thing in the morning when he comes so it has time to dry up a bit, the main thing is you don't want him sitting in water or mud. Oh forgot to ask, where are u located, I am in SW AZ and its been getting 115+ here.


He’s pretty big and his burrow is a 55 gal drum with the bottom half filled with dirt.

This is a photo of the entrance and the second photo is of the burrow before the enty tube was installed and it was covered it up with dirt.












I'm in the high desert of southern CA. My wife and daughter spent the past week in Palm Springs and it was 115 there as well.


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## ascott (Jun 21, 2015)

JohnnyB65 said:


> It’s been really hot here for a while, in the triple digits and everything is just so, so dry. I know that it is cooler down inside, but I looked down the entrance to my desert tortoise’s underground burrow and its pretty much all fine dust. Anyway I want to spray water down the tunnel into the burrow while he’s out in the lawn and I’m pretty sure that as long as I don’t spray it down too much, the dry soil will absorb the water pretty quickly, but I just want to be sure its OK beforehand.
> 
> I used to have a squash garden above his burrow and one year the sprinkler system broke soaking his burrow. He came out soaking wet and I was afraid that he might end up with respiratory problems or something. Everything dried up by the end of the day and he was alright.
> 
> ...



You could make it rain and if some gets down in the entrance that should be ok...but remember...usually a natural dug burrow is generally at a near 45 degree slope and also has a turn leading into the actual sleep area..so I would not allow flooding to take place with a manmade sleeping hide/burrow. You could set up a sprinkler station in a part of his yard and let it run for awhle .see if he will partake of it..you can dust the area where the waterbugs gather with food grade diat. earth..look for ant hills at night...the waterbugs congregate in the ant hill at night fall here...odd but true...and yes black widows do follow the waterbugs to consume as food parts..I contemplated doing the food grade diat. earth at one of the ant hills but I know the diat. earth will kill the ants and I don't want to do that..


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 21, 2015)

ascott said:


> You could make it rain and if some gets down in the entrance that should be ok...but remember...usually a natural dug burrow is generally at a near 45 degree slope and also has a turn leading into the actual sleep area..so I would not allow flooding to take place with a manmade sleeping hide/burrow. You could set up a sprinkler station in a part of his yard and let it run for awhle .see if he will partake of it..you can dust the area where the waterbugs gather with food grade diat. earth..look for ant hills at night...the waterbugs congregate in the ant hill at night fall here...odd but true...and yes black widows do follow the waterbugs to consume as food parts..I contemplated doing the food grade diat. earth at one of the ant hills but I know the diat. earth will kill the ants and I don't want to do that..


I did provide a French drain at the bottom of the ramp just in case we ever get a downpour. I dug a hole about 2 ½ to 3 ft deep and filled it with rock covered with landscaping material to keep dirt from clogging it up. It can’t handle a huge downpour like we had about 10 years ago that flooded my yard and overflowed my fish pond, but I’ve installed a drainage system since then so that will not be so bad if happens again.











I’ve never heard of “food grade diat. earth” before, but I have a large bag of swimming pool diatomaceous earth that I don’t use any more. I wonder if that is the same thing. I used to spread it out over the lawn when I cleaned the pool filter and now that I think about it, I did not have a problem with those bugs back then.


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## Carol S (Jun 21, 2015)

Do not use the diatomaceous earth for swimming pools as it is toxic to your tortoise. You can buy a huge bag of "food grade" diatomaceous earth at a store that sells hay, grain, etc. I really like the burrow you built.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 21, 2015)

Carol S said:


> Do not use the diatomaceous earth for swimming pools as it is toxic to your tortoise. You can buy a huge bag of "food grade" diatomaceous earth at a store that sells hay, grain, etc. I really like the burrow you built.


Thanks Carol for clarifying that.
Well today has been very hot and he has not been more than a few feet from the entrance to his burrow. I was worried that he would not eat today so I tossed some kale leaves into the tunnel and he ate it right up. I also put up an umbrella to shade his water because it was too hot to touch. I guess I'm going to have to start adding cold water throughout the day during the summer.


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## Team Gomberg (Jun 21, 2015)

You could put large ice cubes or homemade ice blocks in his water dish each morning. Takes time to melt (especially if shaded) and keeps the water cooler, longer.  I used to do that when I lived in SoCal.

If the burrow's dust is your concern, I can't imagine lightly misting it down with the hose would be a problem. I wouldn't send the jet stream down there and I wouldn't run water for 10 minutes..but misting it with the hose from the entrance should be fine. I did that for my CDT's man made burrow back when I had one. Mine wasn't as awesome as yours but still.. You aren't asking about an indoor swimming pool, right? Lol


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 22, 2015)

Team Gomberg said:


> You could put large ice cubes or homemade ice blocks in his water dish each morning. Takes time to melt (especially if shaded) and keeps the water cooler, longer.  I used to do that when I lived in SoCal.
> 
> If the burrow's dust is your concern, I can't imagine lightly misting it down with the hose would be a problem. I wouldn't send the jet stream down there and I wouldn't run water for 10 minutes..but misting it with the hose from the entrance should be fine. I did that for my CDT's man made burrow back when I had one. Mine wasn't as awesome as yours but still.. You aren't asking about an indoor swimming pool, right? Lol


Thanks, and yes misting was all I was thinking of and no I wasn’t planning on hosing it down, although I will have to spray a pretty good stream to actually get a little water into the burrow because of the length of the tunnel.

It never really occurred to me before until I saw a documentary on YouTube last November about Desert Tortoises in the wild building a burrow and Brumation. I just can’t find it right now and I thought I marked it, but anyway it showed the DT waiting for the first rains of the season and how the front entrance was designed to collect water into the burrow. I will keep looking for the video, but I’m starting to think it may actually be part of a government information site and not on YouTube.


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## Team Gomberg (Jun 22, 2015)

Interesting.

One thing I think we over look with our man made structures is the fact that we give them artificial walls. In the wild they dig their burrow directly into the dirt. In captivity we give them wood or plastic tunnel and burrow walls and moisture can't penetrate that, not like the wall in the dirt burrow.
Now, I'm not saying a natural dirt burrow is what to do... I didn't do it because of fear of collapse etc. I just knew that I had to occasionally ad some water for moisture because my plywood frame would keep things drier in there.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 22, 2015)

One of the reasons why I used the plastic drum was that the curved ceilings would not only prevent collapse but keep water out. I had a garden above to help keeping it cool and didn’t want water penetrating in. Plus I wanted something on the bottom to keep him from digging his way out into another yard perhaps with large dogs. I heard so many stories about tortoises digging under walls and fences to escape their habitat.

My brother-in-law was visiting friends in their back yard when the neighbor’s tortoise popped up from under the ground. He thought it was a ground squirrel and couldn’t understand why the hole kept getting bigger. LOL


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## Team Gomberg (Jun 22, 2015)

All good reasons for the man made burrows in captivity!

Btw, I hope I was clear.. I wasn't suggesting we leave them with natural burrows instead of the man made burrows. I was simply sharing that adding moisture comes with the man made burrow territory..that's all


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## JohnnyB65 (Jun 22, 2015)

Team Gomberg said:


> All good reasons for the man made burrows in captivity!
> 
> Btw, I hope I was clear.. I wasn't suggesting we leave them with natural burrows instead of the man made burrows. I was simply sharing that adding moisture comes with the man made burrow territory..that's all


Don't worry I understand what you are saying. Hands and ingenuity allow us to improve most all natural habitats.


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## Tom (Jun 23, 2015)

I spray all my burrows down with a hose all summer long. Its just too dry up here in the CA desert.

The roaches will not hurt your tortoise in any way. That is just one reason that roaches are better to feed to insectivorous pet reptiles. If any get left in the cage they won't chew on the lizard, in contrast to crickets. You can keep their numbers lower by using sticky traps out of the tortoises reach.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 3, 2015)

Well I’ve been lightly spraying water into the burrow the last couple of weekends and I do believe my tortoise loves it. He has been spending a lot more time in the burrow and it may be because of the high temperatures, but when he does come out he is covered in dirt. So I think I’m going to continue the light spray at least once a week. And of course I will stop if he comes out muddy for sure, but it’s so hot and dry here that I just don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon.

I do wish that I could find something to grow above his burrow that is drought tolerant that would provide enough shade in keeping the soil cool and that I can buy at Lowe's or Home Depot. It’s way too late to start from seed. It also has to withstand full hot sun all day, every day and whatever I use also has to be able to handle watering only once or twice a week with a minimum of water.


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## Team Gomberg (Jul 3, 2015)

Glad to hear.

Have you considered ice plant? It's very drought tolerant, does great in the full sun and makes great ground cover.


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## Carol S (Jul 3, 2015)

How about a grapevine? I have two grapevines in my Desert Tortoise enclosure and they provide a lot of shade plus food.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 4, 2015)

Team Gomberg said:


> Glad to hear.
> 
> Have you considered ice plant? It's very drought tolerant, does great in the full sun and makes great ground cover.


Thanks Heather and no I haven't. I always think of damp ocean breeze when I think of ice plant and not extremely dry hot weather. It grew like weeds along the coast where I used to live and I did enjoy it. I have not seen it actually growing around here, but have seen it being sold at Lowe's. I'll look it up to see what extremes it can take.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 4, 2015)

Carol S said:


> How about a grapevine? I have two grapevines in my Desert Tortoise enclosure and they provide a lot of shade plus food.


Thanks Carol, I tried to grow grapes many, many years ago for an arbor that I built and just could not get it to grow. I always thought it was because it was too hot or something.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 4, 2015)

I just looked up “ice Plant” and they sound like the perfect plant except that according to one web site they grow in zones 5-10. I believe I’m in Zone 18 and that depends on what zone map I look at, but its somewhere between 15 and 20 according to the USDA map for CA.

I also looked up grapes and found that Grapes grow in Zones 5-9


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## Team Gomberg (Jul 4, 2015)

I'm from SoCal. Chino Hills. My memories of ice plant are from the freeway on and off ramps LOL 
You'll see ice plant all along the 60fwy especially as you drive through Ontario. It's in full sun, it's hot and it seems to do great.

I used ice plant in my Russian pens too. Again, in full sun and I had to trim it constantly!


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 4, 2015)

Thanks Heather, I just got back from Lowe's and they had a sale on Aptenia Cordifolia. They said it does real well here and I only need to water it once a week after it takes hold. So I'm going to give it a try.






Here is a video of it growing wild without any watering for a couple of years.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 6, 2015)

I just finished planting the red apple ground cover (Aptenia cordifolia) and I just discovered that it is an Ice Plant. LOL

It is supposed to spread out 2ft which I’m hoping that it will cover everything. I want to buy a flat so that I could spread them out and have then fill in faster, but Home Depot only had one flat and it was on the ground under other outer plants. I think it was getting over watered because it wasn’t looking very well so I went to Lowe's and they only had 2.5-Quart sizes.

They don’t look very well after I planted them due to the heat and I hope they make it.


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## Team Gomberg (Jul 6, 2015)

You can temporarily put a shade cover over them. Just until they are more established. 

It doesn't have to be fancy or look nice....just something for 2 weeks or so that will keep them shaded to lessen transplant shock.


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## JohnnyB65 (Jul 6, 2015)

Thanks, I just came in from misting them after the sun lowered and it cooled off some. They looked like were doing a little better. I guess I could put up a couple of beach umbrellas for now and I think I’ll mist them in the morning before going to work.


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