How about this for an outdoor enclosure for adult Burmese Tortoises?

[Cowgirl]

Hi,
I have one adult Burmese tortoise and some young ones that will also grow and eventually be outside. I am in Northern California outside of Sacramento. The winter can dip into the high 20’s/low 30s and the summer can exceed 100 degrees. We live in a rural area on five acres in the foothills so we have skunk, raccoons, fox, etc. We also have two dogs that roam our property freely. I am hoping you will let me know what your thoughts are about this enclosure I am planning. I will have a heated night house to close them in. We have a big cement pad just off the side door of the house. I am planning on getting a welded wire dog enclosure 10’x10’ with a wire top. Something like the one in the picture. I will put this on the cement pad, I will put stall mats on the cement pad. I will put a site barrier of probably wood around the inside perimeter so that the turtles can’t see out and can’t get their heads or feet stuck in the wire panels.

Should I use a Micro Bark substrate or some sort of dirt? I will plant lots of edible greens in pots and in garden boxes on the inside perimeter in hopes it feels naturalized to the tortoises.
How deep should the substrate be?
Should I have a rain proof cover on the top or let the rain fall through into the pen? A few feet of the pen will be covered by the overhang on our roof. In the summer if It seems to need shade I can put up shade cloths.

Any other ideas and suggestions are very appreciated. I would like to do this right from the start. So what are your thoughts?
Thank you,
Claudia

 

[Tom]

All sounds good except for the cement pad. I'd put it on the ground, rather than put down stall mats and substrate.

 

[wellington]

I agree with Tom. Put on grass/weeds so he can naturally graze.

 

[Cowgirl]

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try and figure out where/how I can make that work.

 

[Cowgirl]

Outdoor substrate question for new outdoor enclosure.
It’s me again. I wasn’t sure if I should start a new post or add to this one. I am going to build the enclosure on dirt and not on the cement pad as I originally posted above, following the advice I received. The area it will be built on has very hard packed dirt and a little decomposed granite on it. We can easily scrape away the DG. I would like to plant tortoise weeds in the enclosure but I could plant on the perimeter in raised beds. Should I use the micro bark or organic soil as a substrate? How deep would you fill in with this substrate so they can dig and bury themselves? What is ideal for a substrate? Thank you for this valuable forum.

 

[Tom]

Outdoor substrate question for new outdoor enclosure.
It’s me again. I wasn’t sure if I should start a new post or add to this one. I am going to build the enclosure on dirt and not on the cement pad as I originally posted above, following the advice I received. The area it will be built on has very hard packed dirt and a little decomposed granite on it. We can easily scrape away the DG. I would like to plant tortoise weeds in the enclosure but I could plant on the perimeter in raised beds. Should I use the micro bark or organic soil as a substrate? How deep would you fill in with this substrate so they can dig and bury themselves? What is ideal for a substrate? Thank you for this valuable forum.

You don't need substrate out doors. The ground is your substrate. Do scrape away as much DG as you can, and start feeding your tortoise some MinerAll a couple times a week to make sure they don't tank up on pebbles and rocks when they get outside. A good weedy grassy diet also helps prevents this. Grocery store greens in the diet encourage more rock eating. MinerAll helps prevent this.

 

[Cowgirl]

You don't need substrate out doors. The ground is your substrate. Do scrape away as much DG as you can, and start feeding your tortoise some MinerAll a couple times a week to make sure they don't tank up on pebbles and rocks when they get outside. A good weedy grassy diet also helps prevents this. Grocery store greens in the diet encourage more rock eating. MinerAll helps prevent this.

Thanks Tom!