Hermann's enclosure plans

[peasinapod]

I've recently inherited my grandparents' eastern Hermann's tortoise. After I am done with finals, I would like to build him a proper enclosure in the garden.

I would love if you could take a look at the plans and tell me what should be changed or added.

The enclosure probably won't follow the plans 100%, but it shows what I would like it to look like.

:shy:

 

[peasinapod]

Update: Probably won't do the Ipomoea arch. Although I haven't heard of any actual tortoise poisonings, they are known to contain psychoactive substances. i know people who feed them without problems, but best not risk it.

 

[peasinapod]

I know I'm probably annoying , but no feedback at all?
D:

 

[kathyth]

It is a little bit hard for my mind to wrap around a beautiful plan lime you did.
Are you an engineer?

It all looks really good! Mi just don't understand the limestone part. Is that just a flat stone path? That could be cool.
It looks good and entertaining giving the tort plentynof variety.
Can't wait to see the progress.

 

[peasinapod]

No, I'm not an engineer, I am technically inept.

The limestone part will be like a path, but not completely flat. Here, you can easily get limestone rubble in different sizes, which then makes a good substrate, as long as the pieces aren't huge. It dries pretty fast, rain drains well, heats up pretty nicely and if you take the yellowish stones, it gives everything a nice mediterranean touch. It also helps to add more chalk to the soil, which in turn raises its quality as tortoise substrate. (And you can get it cheap, at around 150 dollars per ton)

I will only be ablo to start in July, sadly. I still have finals...

 

[johnsonnboswell]

It looks beautiful. I can't rotate the picture so I'm having trouble figuring it out, so forgive me if I say things you've already covered. Some remarks: make it escape proof. My hermann's crops the grass down to bare earth and makes large dips she could crawl through, so having walls rest on the ground won't do it. Make it as big as possible. Have a shelter in it. Expect your tortoise to pace around the walls, not to use your meandering paths, and to entirely relandscape the place. Be prepared to reseed and replant. Grow edible weeds and pants so she can graze. Check her plastron & feet for abrasions if you use hard surfaces She'll love being outside.

 

[kathyth]

That sounds very nice to me!
Lucky Hermann's.

 

[peasinapod]

I thought I had rotated them? Do the pictures appear sideways? D:

For the 60 years Peter has been living in the family he has never tried to dig his way out, but I will be keeping a close eye on him in the first few weeks. I know that he will not use the paths, but they aren't really meant as paths per se, but rather have the function to provide different substrates and just "break it up" a little bit.

He'll probably restructure the whole enclosure after the first 10 minutes inside!

I have heard that if you structure the inside enough, and block the way along the sides in different spots you can prevent them from "hugging the walls".

I plan to put plants inside which are already slightly bigger, and grow "backup" outside. I have already planted lots of seeds in pots, but due to the cold and the rain in the last few weeks a lot of plants drowned or haven't grown as big as I would have liked them to.