NATURAL BURROWS

[Tom]

My tortoises are too precious to me to risk cold, collapse or flooding. Its so easy to put up a shed of some sort and throw down a pig blanket or a CHE or both. The burrow thing is certainly a novelty to me (All boys are fascinated with giant holes in the ground. I used to dig my own when I was a child). I would love to go to Africa and watch WILD sulcatas in their burrows and measure temps and humidity, follow them around and see what they eat for a couple of years.

But I just can't justify leaving one outside year round with no heat source in North America. Maybe at the Southern tip of FL or deep in the keys, but not in AZ,CA or TX where temps regularly drop below freezing.

 

[Edward's Mom]

Burrowing can be a problem if you don't have lots of land. We have a nice size lot, but our 12 year old sulcata burrowed clear under the neighbors fence. They could hear her (his?) digging several feet underground right into the middle of their yard...talk about digging to China. Edward loves to dig! We live in AZ too. Edward made the choice to be outside one winter. We didn't do it for her. I'm currently blocking her hole to please the neighbors and appreciate the insights on training her not to dig so much.

I had her up for sale, but big discussions over what sex she is took place. I've always thought she was female, but some of the experts on this forum disagree. Experts who have seen her in person have always told me I was lucky to get a girl. Maybe she just has strange DNA or something. I don't know. All I know is I need to keep her from burrowing and redo her habitat. Seems my prospective buyers all wanted a female, but since we can't be sure... And it appears I was selling her way too cheap too. If you ever decide to sell yours, do your homework and make sure you get a good price for them.

I think I'll hang around here a while and get ideas for new pens for Edward. We may end up keeping her after all, which means we'll definitely need to build a new habitat that prevents her from burrowing...right in the heat of summer, too. Ah, life! She's more than worth it

Edward's Mom