Everyone inside for a chilly night

[nickpanzee]

Last night got pretty cold (for South Texas) for my tortoises. I am in the middle of modifying their heated house for the larger tortoises and killing fire ants to get them out of the walls :/ I think the fire ants are nice and killed, just like I like them (I used soap in the walls and let it get all bubbly). If they are not all dead, they have at least moved out, which is ok, but not ideal (cause they're better if they can't come back). So I brought all of them in last night. They have gotten SO HUGE and HEAVY! Only the littlest leopard isn't in the pic. But this is everybody but the little one.




I was thinking I would find tortoises all over the house this morning, but lucky me, they all stayed in the bins. I did cover them with towels, but they didn't seem deterred by that last night. I think when we finally turned off the lights, they quit trying to escape.

Here's their house with no roof and ant-y walls. When I put the roof on, it was all sand at the top. Those ants stirred up my dirt and mixed it with the sand. Jerks

 

[Levi the Leopard]

Ooooh I remember you.

So ants made a home in those walls huh. Interesting...well sucks for you. Someone was asking me recently about using cinder blocks for a heated tortoise house.

Good luck with the ant eviction.

 

[nickpanzee]

Yes they did. I pretty much made that house as a temporary one (couple of years kind of temporary). I didn't think of fire ants moving in. I should have. I think they mostly moved back down into the ground when I took off all cover. I soaped them anyway. Hopefully that'll keep them away. I didn't want to use poison in near the tortoises.

Cinder blocks aren't very good insulators. Especially if the ground where you are stacking them isn't perfectly level. It leaves gaps. I filled the gaps with expanding foam and some weather strip like stuff. It helps. I think wood with insulation in the walls would be much better.

 

[jtrux]

Mine had to come in as well. It shouldn't be this cold.

 

[nickpanzee]

I know, right! Next week is supposed to be colder. Tuesday and Wednesday say they will be in the 30s. I thought this was November, not February. I hope it doesn't get that low. I'll be sure to get their house finished before then.