New Box Turtle Home

TortsNTurtles

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It is looking good! Sand is not the best substrate for the 3 year olds they may get it in their eyes lol Just kidding of course they look like they are having fun playing in the sand. I look forward to seeing the progress. I will be starting my dream turtle garden soon too and will be watching your thread. Thanks for sharing.
 

terryo

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What Yvonne said. I had to take a few hide's out of my turtle garden because my Gulf Coast was always sitting on top of them. All Box turtles are expert climbers. I have a small pond in my garden and some of them will sit in the pond for hours on a hot day. Be careful putting any plants near the edge because they will use the plants to climb out, especially if you don't have any over laping. I have a cave on one side filled with leaf litter where they go when the weather is bad and also to hibernate for the Winter. Here's my turtle garden last Summer so you can see some of the plants I use.
 

cmacusa3

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Thanks, see above, I discuss a small pond for his soaking. Mine seems to like to sleep in his water dish!

I have thought about escape. Do you think he can climb a 16" high wall though?
I have 10 in enclosure very similar to this and I've never had one climb out. I used to have landscape rocks on one side and they would climb out daily.
 

clsanchez77

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I don't know if they climb as good as say a Russian tortoise, but I hear they are good climbers.I would try the lip on top. Or you can put hardware cloth or chicken wire over the time if you want to.

I think I figured something out as I have some left over landscape timbers. I will rip them in half on a table saw and make a ledge around the interior perimeter with mitered interior corners. I think this will do the trick.

Thanks for the tip!
 

clsanchez77

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You'll see how it goes and make changes as you need to. It's hard to think of everything in advance. Real world results don't always meet expectations.

I don't know where you are. Climate matters. Morning sun is important, but check to see if it's enough. Full sun in a large part of the habitat in spring and fall will extend the season.

Walls and plants provide shade, too.

Your proposed water feature seems very large for the size of the enclosure. He needs a lot of space for walking around. Similarly, don't over plant, or don't think you need to landscape completely to begin with.

Box turtles are terrific climbers. Your walls and all the corners are perfect ladders even though the height itself is fine. Plants will also aid his climb.

Use compost as the substrate and add leaves and garden waste. Plant edibles or slug attractors.

Hey Johnson, very insightful. Let me address. The enclosure is half along the side of the my house and the other half extends past. The entire enclosure will have morning sun. The portion along the house will have full shade from about 1 on. The portion past the house will have direct sun for a few more hours, maybe till 3, then have dappled sun/shade from some live oak trees just off my property.

You are correct about the pond. I dug it out and it's way to big. Once we get past this next rain spell and some warmer temps return, I will regrade and reduce the pond. I am looking for more of a watering hole. Something I can throw in some mosquito fish. If the turtle eats them or not is not relevant.

I think I addressed the climbing with some leftover timbers.

The landscaping will be limited to the perimeter to my wife's satisfaction. The intent is to keep the middle portion open for direct sun. I also picked up some slate rock to place in the middle to help with warmth in the sun.
 

clsanchez77

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I have large pieces of slate going around the whole enclosure (about 22 feet by 7 feet) on the top so no one can climb out.

There is an idea. I wonder how I could secure that to landscape timers... You have a picture by chance?
 

clsanchez77

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I feel you. It makes projects take way longer than you expected doesn't it. Be sure to post up more pics when you're finished. I had cinder blocks for walls of my box turtle area and my wife hated it. She said all the blocks in my backyard (sulcata pen, Redfoot pen and box turtle pen) made her yard look like a jail cell so I had to get rid of all the blocks. Now I'm trying to find something she likes. She let me give the sully free range of the entire back yard so now I just need to find something for the Redfoots and box turtles. Luckily they are all still small and living in indoor enclosure but this spring is when I was going to start letting them out more often.

Yes, but on the other hand, I get a lot more time to think things through since I can only go about half a step at a time. I also have access to several "helpers". But I try to make everything a family event. They learn and I get free labor.
 

clsanchez77

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Helper.jpg Planted.jpg Compost.jpg Well, weather has not been cooperative, but I did make some progress today...

First was a $200 trip to Lowe's. I picked up 10 cubic feet of mulch, 5 southern wood ferns (a native to the area) and s spry/misting irrigation system.

The mulch was an organic compost by the brand Hapi-Grow. I use this brand for the pink bark mulch in my gardens all the time. I had enough compost for about 2" to 3" throughout.

The wood ferns are native to the area. They prefer morning sun, so I planted them around the pond in the portion that will be afternoon shaded by my house. I have not decided on other plants as of yet. I will add as I feel like it and will watch the turtle as well. I want to strike a pleasing balance of providing him cover and open areas. I also added two decent size branches I cut off a young Maple tree. I have three young maple trees and each year, I cut the bottom branches off to raise the canopy. This year's cut resulted in some really nice branches, so I added them to the turtle pen instead of the garbage pile. I may find a turtle friendly vine to grow on them. Welcomed to suggestions.

The misting system is the same irrigation I use in my front shrub garden. I have 7 spray heads in all. I tried to catch a picture of it in action but really could not photograph it well with my phone. With seven heads in a 8'x10' enclosure, it makes a heavy mist/fog. My plan is to run every other night for about 30 minutes. I will adjust frequency by the soil moisture. The turtle really seemed to like this! I am curious if I should add a carbon filter on this line to remove chlorine/chloramines from the water!

Not the use of a helper; you can never have enough free labor.

On the pond, the fountain head came with the filter kit. I have read that the turtles will stay away from the fountain as they are leery of moving water. I have not found that to be the case at all. This guy loves to sit on the rocks with the water splashing. But I will be putting the pump on a timer and running it intermittently. Its purpose is just to keep the pond from going stagnant. I intend to drain the pond and replace the water monthly as my primary means of cleaning the pond. I also intend to remove the rocks annually.

Also, I added some more rock to get the beach effect I was going for. I have plenty of area around the pond for the turtle to get his feet wet without taking a dive. I find it to be about 50/50 regarding if the turtle will sit on the rocks or actually jump in the water. The pond as a good slope and a rock bottom where he can easily crawl in and out of the water.

I also intend to plant Saggitaria around the inside perimeter of the pond. This is a native grass sold in aquarium shops and will do well partially submerged in full sun.

For the next step, I intend to plant some Hostas in the morning shade, afternoon sun areas. Also, my neighbor gave me a bag of Live Oak leaves he raked up out of his yard today. I wanted to give the compost some moisture and sun exposure, they I will mix it into the soil and top off with the leaves.
 

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