I'll share what I have going on with my tortoises for the winter. I think it's practical and relatively simple. I've done this for 3 winters now and it has worked great!
Here is the outside:
You can see it's made of standard concrete blocks which make good insulation. I take this down during the spring, and I don't mind moving all these blocks back and forth so it works for me. I'm not exactly sure what the top is, some kind of panel board that's water resistant. You can find a 4' * 8' peice of it at Lowe's or Home Depot for around $15. I find it easier to not have hinges on the lid so I put handles to open it and close it.
My Indian Stars are in the smaller one on the left, the leopards on the right.
A view with the lids open.
The lids have 1 inch insulation on the top and around the interior walls.
This shows the light fixtures in the star box one for an MVB and one for a CHE, the leopards have the same thing except they have 4 fixtures.
I'm not an electrician so I don't care if you laugh at this, but this shows somewhat how it is wired. I have an extension cord coming in through the cut 2*6 connected to a surge protector. From the surge protector another extension cord connects power to the leopard enclosure.
You can’t see it all in this shot, but another surge protector is connected that has 2 separate timers on it, one for the MVB and one for the CHE. I connected a power cord from each of the timers that runs through a light switch to make it easier to turn off either fixture when the tortoises aren’t in there. The light fixtures are ceramic and the boxes they connect to are long enough that they don’t heat up the 2*3’s they are connected too to dangerous levels.
This is the door and my awesome shoes. The board is ½ inch and fits perfectly inside the slits of the blocks. On the bottom I have a hole big enough for the tortoises to enter and exit, I can block this with another piece of wood to prevent them from getting out on a cold night.
This is a shot inside the leopard box with my female in a corner. The substrate for both boxes is just dirt and peat moss.
The star box with lid open.
I had to cut off one end of the extension cord to fit it through the PVC pipe, this is to protect it from getting wet.
If you couldn’t tell, a lot of the materials I used were just stuff I had lying around. I have had the leopard hide box up for three winters now, the star box I just made and the whole thing head to toe cost less than $150 which I think is reasonable for what it offers. We rarely have more than a two day stretch during the winter here where I can’t take the tortoises outside so the MVB’s really aren’t necessary, but I like using them. The CHE’s are 150 watt and maintain a nighttime temperature in the high 80’s directly under it, and in the outer edges of the box it stays in the high 70’s to low 80’s. The temperatures are the same during the day with the lights on, except a little higher underneath the lights. It may be too much in some aspects or could be simplified, but this works and I am pleased with it. My tortoises seem to like it and that’s the important thing.
Here is the outside:
You can see it's made of standard concrete blocks which make good insulation. I take this down during the spring, and I don't mind moving all these blocks back and forth so it works for me. I'm not exactly sure what the top is, some kind of panel board that's water resistant. You can find a 4' * 8' peice of it at Lowe's or Home Depot for around $15. I find it easier to not have hinges on the lid so I put handles to open it and close it.
My Indian Stars are in the smaller one on the left, the leopards on the right.
A view with the lids open.
The lids have 1 inch insulation on the top and around the interior walls.
This shows the light fixtures in the star box one for an MVB and one for a CHE, the leopards have the same thing except they have 4 fixtures.
I'm not an electrician so I don't care if you laugh at this, but this shows somewhat how it is wired. I have an extension cord coming in through the cut 2*6 connected to a surge protector. From the surge protector another extension cord connects power to the leopard enclosure.
You can’t see it all in this shot, but another surge protector is connected that has 2 separate timers on it, one for the MVB and one for the CHE. I connected a power cord from each of the timers that runs through a light switch to make it easier to turn off either fixture when the tortoises aren’t in there. The light fixtures are ceramic and the boxes they connect to are long enough that they don’t heat up the 2*3’s they are connected too to dangerous levels.
This is the door and my awesome shoes. The board is ½ inch and fits perfectly inside the slits of the blocks. On the bottom I have a hole big enough for the tortoises to enter and exit, I can block this with another piece of wood to prevent them from getting out on a cold night.
This is a shot inside the leopard box with my female in a corner. The substrate for both boxes is just dirt and peat moss.
The star box with lid open.
I had to cut off one end of the extension cord to fit it through the PVC pipe, this is to protect it from getting wet.
If you couldn’t tell, a lot of the materials I used were just stuff I had lying around. I have had the leopard hide box up for three winters now, the star box I just made and the whole thing head to toe cost less than $150 which I think is reasonable for what it offers. We rarely have more than a two day stretch during the winter here where I can’t take the tortoises outside so the MVB’s really aren’t necessary, but I like using them. The CHE’s are 150 watt and maintain a nighttime temperature in the high 80’s directly under it, and in the outer edges of the box it stays in the high 70’s to low 80’s. The temperatures are the same during the day with the lights on, except a little higher underneath the lights. It may be too much in some aspects or could be simplified, but this works and I am pleased with it. My tortoises seem to like it and that’s the important thing.
