Building a winter "house" in So Cal

[ocflyfish]

Hello everyone,

It is getting cold (down to the 40s and soon to be 30s) here in Orange County, CA where we live. I am going to build a winter "house" for Leo our Russian Tort. My intention is for him to hibernate in there during the winter.

I wanted to run the general idea by everyone to see if you see any issues or problems.

I am going to use 1" x 6" pine. I plan on having an inside structure which will be surrounded by insulation (roughly 6.9 R value) which will be covered with another set of 1" x 6" pine. It will be elevated on stilts a few inches above grade to make sure no water gets inside.

The sides will definately be insulated and I an wondering if I should also insulate the ceiling as well. I don't want him to bake inside obviously. Should I put a "door" or leave it open for venting purposes?

What should the internal dimensions be approximately to support an adult Russian tort?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Bryan

 

[CGKeith]

A suggestion for the door is to use the clear plastic carpet runner, or carpet protector.

I found it at ACE hardware on a roll, so you can buy it by the foot.

Attach it so it hangs down over the door way and cut slits so that your tortoise can go in and out it if wants.

The size of the house shouldn't need to have much floor space if you just have the one. Maybe 12" to 18" square.

I don't have any Russians any longer, but when I did mine would dig down in the ground and bury themselves to hibernate.

Anyway, hope that helps a little.

 

[ocflyfish]

Thanks it was very helpful!

 

[terracolson]

Mine guys are sleeping in a dog house, packed full of leaves. They love it!

I am in Sacramento

 

[Madortoise]

I transformed the big dog carrier to a box for the hide for my DT. There's mix of cedar and aspen shaving inside and half-log for her to hide. The carrier is plastic w/metal cage door. It has some vent opening on the two sides of the box and the door opening is a cage type metal. I leave the door open in the morning when I leave for work and I put the door back at night when she is already inside when I come home. I cover the opening of log with spagham moss at night but she pushes it open to come out during the day. It's 50s at night and still pretty warm during the mid-day. I've stopped feeding her so she's only eating what she finds in our yard. When she stops coming out, I plan to move the whole carrier to the patio rather than keeping her in the backyard area to keep it away from potential rain.

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Mado:

Everything in your post sounds excellent!! except for the cedar shavings. Cedar is one of the aromatic oils trees and the shavings might have too much oil left in them. Might hurt the tortoise's eyes.

 

[tortoisenerd]

Yes, I also agree to only use aspen, no cedar.