I will look into the snails. I do have a sort of homemade worm been started. I think I'm going to take some of the worms out of there and put them in her enclosure, they'll probably do better in there.yeah, the side of the state gets pretty cold but I'm from Colorado so I don't mind cold.I don't think box turtles are native to this part of the country, but I could be wrong.I don't have that much of a history on this one, she was a rescue from my vet.she came to me in a little bit of rough shape but I think I'm getting her on track now, had to trim some nails and file down her beak a little bit.
Boxturtle enclosure, critiques please
- Thread starter leigti
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Wild snails can carry flukes, so the recommendation has been to raise them & use the subsequent generations as feeders. Maybe that's changed? Pesticides are a concern, of course.
That said, I feed all the slugs I can find to my crew. Snails, on the other hand, are few and far between hereabouts (maybe there's too much competition for them in my garden?) and I feed them on the rare occasions I find them. That can be every few years.
That said, I feed all the slugs I can find to my crew. Snails, on the other hand, are few and far between hereabouts (maybe there's too much competition for them in my garden?) and I feed them on the rare occasions I find them. That can be every few years.
I don't think I'll be able to find a snail around here, not wet enough. How do you raise snails? I might just try to buy some at the pet store. I have seen can snails but I wondered about them.I might buy a fish every now and then for her also. 
I bought a Yoshima weeping cherry tree at Lowes that had amber snails on them. I meticulously inspected every nook and cranny of the tree and found 10 snails. I took a small rubbermaid container and turned it into a snail habitat. I am currently on my second generation. No signs of fluke, prospering very well.
I am thinking about making this a partially closed enclosure for the winter to keep the humidity and heat in. any suggestions? Somebody suggested making a little frame over the heat lamp area with chicken wire and then draping plastic or tinfoil over it. I thought about maybe making a little frame over the top with PVC pipe and putting plastic shower curtain over it. how would I make sure that there is plenty of air in there? I don't want to make it airtight in anyway.I will look up some pictures of clothes Chambers when I get to my computer but if anybody had ideas I'm listening. thanks.it will have to be something I can do without any power tools. I do have a bunch of chicken wire and chicken wire cutters though 
They would never get near the chicken wire, it would be over the top of one end of the enclosure. The sides are too slick to climb up.
I think I am leaning more towards a PVC pipe frame. It would be easier to manage I think. I think a trip to Home Depot is in my future : there is an employee there that has a sulcata so we talk tortoises once in a while. He had a Russian but it iescaped by digging a hole under the pen. I told him I put hardware cloth under my pen because I was paranoid my tortoise would dig out. Now he really wishes he would've done that. he never found it again. The trail led off into a field.
klack95
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- Dec 10, 2014
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I am late on reading this thread, for that I apologize. I am loving your enclosure. I have a question regarding your strip light. What length bulb is that and what fixture do you have for it? I have ordered a new 36" reptisun for my guys but I am not able to find a fixture that doesn't required hard wired balists.
JennK
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- Apr 27, 2015
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I would personally keep it open and hook up an adjustable humidifier via pvc pipes. It looks like fog lingering in the area you set up and you can adjust the flow to whatever you need. Works like a dream! Twice a week I set it to high for few minutes to water any live plants and give the substrate a nice moisture. I've used both top soil and coco coir, my preference by far is coco coir mixed with a bit of repti bark. It's sterile, cheap, and not as messy or smelly, but everyone has their preference! That being said, either mixture is messy! It will stick to your turtles, clog any filters, and get in their food bowl! My final solution, is humid hides. I now have a "bare" floor with some different carpets and basking surfaces and added two humid hides which are plastic shoe boxed built into a decorative "rock cave" that I fill with substrate for digging and burrowing. Little foot and spike are MUCH happier with this set up as am I. Less eye irritants, no more accidental snacks, no smells for my hubby to complain about and its a LOT easier to clean!
