When I first moved back to KY in 2016, I had a very primitive indoors set-up for my pair of rapidly growing redfoots. I spent that first winter and the subsequent spring and summer building a huge insulated box in my garage for them. Had to take a break after that for other house projects, but I would get them outside in the warmer months in a piece of my yard surrounded by chicken wire and landscape blocks.
I had 3 escape attempts from the smaller one (found her nearby in the yard or the neighbor's driveway all times--she is excellent at exploiting weaknesses in the perimeter!) and a days-long excursion from the big one (on a whim after a few days I asked a neighbor 3 houses down if he'd seen anything that looks like a "giant box turtle". He said she'd been camping in his flower beds, so I got lucky there.) I finally got the pen so that they wouldn't be able to escape, but it was by no means predator-proof, so I'd have to take them in every night or risk the raccoons, foxes, and coyotes that frequent the neighborhood.
So over this winter I decided (with the wife begrudgingly blessing the operation) to tear down the outside enclosure and build a new one. I decided to keep it in the backyard on the north side of the house because it's sort of level there, close to the hose faucet and a nice view from the kitchen. It also gets sun in the late morning and late afternoon and some spotty sun in between due to tree coverage.
Due to tree and deck placement, I settled on a base size of 17x9 feet.
Leveled it up with concrete block on a base of crushed stone. The blocks are held in place with rebar and capped with landscape stone that are glued on.
Had my little helper with me on a cold January morning. Had to use some of the blocks to hold back all of the dirt and clay on the gentle slope while I built the wall. Needed to remove some tree roots as well.
I had 3 escape attempts from the smaller one (found her nearby in the yard or the neighbor's driveway all times--she is excellent at exploiting weaknesses in the perimeter!) and a days-long excursion from the big one (on a whim after a few days I asked a neighbor 3 houses down if he'd seen anything that looks like a "giant box turtle". He said she'd been camping in his flower beds, so I got lucky there.) I finally got the pen so that they wouldn't be able to escape, but it was by no means predator-proof, so I'd have to take them in every night or risk the raccoons, foxes, and coyotes that frequent the neighborhood.
So over this winter I decided (with the wife begrudgingly blessing the operation) to tear down the outside enclosure and build a new one. I decided to keep it in the backyard on the north side of the house because it's sort of level there, close to the hose faucet and a nice view from the kitchen. It also gets sun in the late morning and late afternoon and some spotty sun in between due to tree coverage.
Due to tree and deck placement, I settled on a base size of 17x9 feet.
Leveled it up with concrete block on a base of crushed stone. The blocks are held in place with rebar and capped with landscape stone that are glued on.
Had my little helper with me on a cold January morning. Had to use some of the blocks to hold back all of the dirt and clay on the gentle slope while I built the wall. Needed to remove some tree roots as well.
