California care

[3Tboxie]

I'm looking for some advice on moving (my) daughters 3 year old 3 toed boxie outside. We live in California where temperatures are high and I can't seem to find anything about outdoor housing.

 

[ColleenT]

Are you able to give them places to dig under the ground to stay cool? Is it soil or sand?

 

[3Tboxie]

Are you able to give them places to dig under the ground to stay cool? Is it soil or sand?

I haven't built anything yet. If it is possible to do so outdoors I will need some pointers. We are planning on landscaping the back yard next year so for now its dry dirt with no irrigation and concrete. For now I'd like to build something small that I can put next to my front yard planter which runs upto the front door. If I should wait til the backyard is complete I will do so, it's just the Sun/Heat lamp we use keeps my daughter's room hot so she runs the ceiling fan which drys out the coconut substrate. She would rather sell her turtle but I've pretty much taken ownership when the turtle got sick 2 1/2 years ago because we didn't have the right set up. After learning the amount of care needed I can't just let her go I would worry if she was being taken care of.

 

[Yvonne G]

In my opinion, you would soon lose your turtle yo one of those nefarious turtlenappers if you build the pen in the front yard.

I like my box turtle yard to be wild and overgrown I thoroughly enjoy looking at manicured, beautifully landscaped box turtle yards, but my choice is the wild, natural look. Let the weeds grow, and in the middle of all those weeds, toss out some seeds, johnny jump ups, violets, strawberry, ferns. They need a bit of sun, but mostly shade, and a nice big wading hole. I'm on my kindle right now and not real fluent in forum/kindle speak, but I'll try to attach a picture of my box turtle yard. Mine houses many, many box turtles. For one you don't need such a big yard:

Nope, sorry, I guess the pictures have to be in the kindle's cloud, and they're not . Later I'll come back and attach pictures from my computer.

 

[Yvonne G]

This is the eastern box turtle yard:



this is the Florida box turtle yard (the weeds have died down):



this is the 3-toe top of picture and luteola front of picture. I'm in the process of replacing the grape stakes with a solid fence:



This is a quarantine pen:

 

[Eric Phillips]

I completely agree with Yvonne, however for a 3 year old box turtle I would scale it down and make it predator proof. If I place a 3 year old in my 3 toed or Gulf Coast pens, I might not find them until it would be an adult, lol!




I would suggest something like this:




This way you can find it to check up on it and your providing a safe outdoor area to groom it for the big world

 

[TurtleMama7]

I am also in California with 3 three toed box turtles. We are getting ready to build a new turtle habitat outside in our yard to replace our current one which does not stay moist enough. We have chosen a spot that gets sun as well shade throughout the day and will stay cool. Enclosure will be above ground with wood sides. Our main question concerns the base of the enclosure. Is it necessary and/or recommended to place hardware cloth or some type of barrier under the dirt so the turtles don't dig too far down in the dirt?

Our enclosure will look more like the photo above on the side of the house. The ground is dirt/soil.

Thanks for any suggestions!