100% outdoors questions

[tchwety]

Hi,
I recently inherited my son's African Spurred tortoise. He had him for five years. I live in the Arizona desert so I think the climate is relatively close to it's native African climate.

For now the tortoise has a terrarium that we keep him in on the patio at night, and a makeshift pen in the back yard we let him roam around in during the day.

Our goal is to build a permanent pen/garden area for him. I've been reading about heating reptiles: some with light, some without, dangers of burning or overheating, etc, etc.

We have built a house for him and would like to use solor energy for heat. During the winters it can get down to into the 30's (fahrenheit), but it is Arizona where we have full sun 99% of the time. He will have plenty of exposure to natural sunlight, so I think we just need to be concerned with heat during the winter months. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Missy]

Have you looked at using a pig mat? It is a heating pad that is used for pigs and they work great for reptiles.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi tchwety:

Welcome to the forum!!

You would probably be able to keep a night time house fairly warm with either a CHE (ceramic heat emitter) or a black/red incandescent bulb. You can buy different watt sizes of CHE at any pet store, but be sure to buy a fixture with a ceramic base, not a Bakelite base, as the CHE gets pretty hot. The smaller the house, the easier to keep warm, but the smaller the house, the sooner you have to re-build because they grow pretty fast.

I just took in a couple of fairly large sulcatas (in the 50lb range) and all the previous owner had for heating the night time house was a large red spot light.

You just want to shoot for temps no lower than 70 for very small tortoises, and no lower than 65 for the larger ones.

 

[Tom]

Hello and welcome to the forum. Here's what I do for mine in Southern CA:
http://tortoiseforum.org/Thread-Heated-Den-Boxes

 

[tortoisenerd]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on the tort! You have already got some great advice here. One thing I have to add is that many of the owners of especially younger outdoor torts will like to block the door of the night house to keep the tort safe from predators. Yes, even large torts can be injured or killed. The tort does need a place to get off of a pig mat, or have an option to get away from directly under the heat bulb (a bit of a night temp gradient). A thermostat is necessary for either a pig mat or heat bulb (the combo of the two might be good if just the heat bulb is insufficient). Can you show us some photos of the current house so you can get advice which would work with it? No idea if you are talking about a dog house or large shed size for example. Good luck!

 

[Jacqui]

I don't think I saw this anywhere, but knowing the size of your tortoise would help a lot too.

 

[gummybearpoop]

My friends keep their sulcatas outside all year round in arizona WITHOUT any supplemental heat, BUT they do let them burrow.

 

[tchwety]

Can you show us some photos of the current house so you can get advice which would work with it? No idea if you are talking about a dog house or large shed size for example. Good luck!

It is about 2 ft x 2 ft square and maybe 2 ft high. Built exactly like a doghouse.

 

[terryo]

Welcome to the forum. What a nice big enclosure you have for him.