Our new outdoor Sulcata enclosure

Hello all!
We have a rescue female Sulcata that we "think" is about 4 years old. We live in northwest Florida and recently upgraded Shelby from her small indoor area to what we think is a nice enclosure. Her house is insulated with a day light, a ceramic heat light, and a kennel heating pad underneath cypress mulch. We have an outdoor temp/humidty sensor and so far it has been 80-85* at night to 95* in the daytime. Humidity is around 65% to 75%. Can anyone spot anything we need to do differently with the enclosure? We rescue all sorts of animals, but this is our first tortoise. Thanks for any input!

I love it

I’m Kevin74’s other half, he invited me to join this forum, Thanks for any feedback she has enjoyed (down to the ground) the decorative spineless prickly pear plant already lol

Love that! Your tort is lucky to have all that room.

And a very warm welcome to the forum.

Looks really nice. I always think it's important for people to realize how much time and money goes into creating a nice enclosure. Could you share that with us?

Beautiful animal.

I love that you were savvy enough to place the sight barrier wood all around the edges so the tortoise won't continuously try to dig through (if they can see through, that's where they'll spend their time, trying to get through).

It's a very eye-pleasing enclosure, and looks quite comfy for a tortoise too, however, (yes, there's always a 'but') your tortoise isn't big enough yet to know if she's a 'she' or a 'he'.

Jacqui said:

Looks really nice. I always think it's important for people to realize how much time and money goes into creating a nice enclosure. Could you share that with us?

Beautiful animal.

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Give or take around $1500. The resin shed that we turned into her "house" was $550 or so, the enclosure is a chicken coop from Tractor Supply and cost around $600, then about $350 in wood, heat pads and lights, insulation, rocks and fountain, and pipes to run wiring.

Yvonne G said:

I love that you were savvy enough to place the sight barrier wood all around the edges so the tortoise won't continuously try to dig through (if they can see through, that's where they'll spend their time, trying to get through).

It's a very eye-pleasing enclosure, and looks quite comfy for a tortoise too, however, (yes, there's always a 'but') your tortoise isn't big enough yet to know if she's a 'she' or a 'he'.

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Wow! OK, so Shelby is a good name then in case he/she decides to be a different sex. We don't know much about these other than what we've read on here, we were going by what the people we rescued him/her from told us.

When it gets a few inches bigger front to back, that's when we'll be able to look at the plastron (bottom shell) and tail to see which sex it is. All tortoises carry the female characteristics until they start to go through sexual maturity.

Kevin74 said:

Wow! OK, so Shelby is a good name then in case he/she decides to be a different sex. We don't know much about these other than what we've read on here, we were going by what the people we rescued him/her from told us.

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Great! May have to change her name to "Bruce"

Very nice enclosure, you can tell you put a lot of time & money into it. One thing I don't see is shade. Is there any shade from the sun?

dmmj said:

Very nice enclosure, you can tell you put a lot of time & money into it. One thing I don't see is shade. Is there any shade from the sun?

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The enclosure is up against the back wall of our house and only gets direct sunlight in the afternoon. Do we need something in there for shade during those 4 to 5hrs?

Kevin74 said:

The enclosure is up against the back wall of our house and only gets direct sunlight in the afternoon. Do we need something in there for shade during those 4 to 5hrs?

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Your needs shade to regulate their temps. They overheat very quickly.they need shade all day long

dmmj said:

Your needs shade to regulate their temps. They overheat very quickly.they need shade all day long

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We will correct ASAP. Thank you for the heads up!

It's lovely and great that you have room to expand and make it bigger as s/he grows.