Jimothythetort
New Member
I've been thinking about it for a long time, but I finally mentioned to my husband the other day that I wanted to build our tortoise a custom indoor enclosure. If there's one thing that life partners are good at, it's taking your ideas and running with it, so yesterday we built our tortoise his new bachelor pad!
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/dlOAx )
This is a picture of the completed box we made. It measures about 34 inches by 34 inches--the plywood bottom measures 36 by 36, and we didn't get everything perfectly aligned on there, but it's pretty close. (This has probably been repeated in other writeups, but from what we heard around here, Lowe's will cut your wood to your *exact* requirements, whereas Home Depot does a rough cut. We don't have a saw, so Lowe's was our friend.) The planks we used for the walls are about a foot in width--one of our biggest concerns with the tortoises' old enclosure, which had glass sides (I know, I know), was that our tortoise could see our dogs, and whether that was causing him unnecessary stress. It seemed better to give him taller walls, and close him off more from stress, than to go with a lower-lipped design even if we could have. We also took a book from the recent post by Ramsey about his indoor townhome-style setup where he used vinyl flooring around the bottom of his enclosure. For $20 we bought a small pallet of "seashore" flooring and I'm in love with the final product. Even with our imperfect construction knowledge, we were able to cut and place the flooring to fit the bottom and sides of the box. Long-term I'll be keeping a suspicious eye on the flooring closest to the light--I'm worried the heat will make the glue soft--but for now it looks really good.
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/utgGl)
Here's a picture of the lights (before we'd completely gotten everything in the enclosure). The light bracket is one we found at Petco--they price match with their own website so we got it for a cool $13.99. The way it comes, it's a peel-n-stick--seems to be meant for glass terrariums, but as you might guess didn't do so well on wood. Luckily, the plastic plate was easy to drill some screws into. In the future we might diversify the light setup, but right now our tort is enjoying warming on the rocks near the infrared lamp and digging to China as he basks in the sun lamp.
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/0oI6Y )
And here's Jimothy, enjoying his new space! I haven't seen the usual hide-in-a-corner-for-a-few-days behavior he has when we move him out of and into his home for cleaning---he's doing a lot of ambling around his new space!
We're not done with everything we plan to do with his new space--we'll be adding plants, another hide, etc. etc. When we first discussed this project I wanted to build him a second level and a ramp, and I think with the tall walls we definitely have the opportunity to do it in the future. I'm just not sure, with the amount of square footage that he has, if a second level will add significantly to his engagement/enjoyment beyond satisfying his love of climbing, which we can probably satisfy other ways. I'd appreciate your feedback on what we've done so far and your tips and tricks for spoiling your torts!!
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/dlOAx )
This is a picture of the completed box we made. It measures about 34 inches by 34 inches--the plywood bottom measures 36 by 36, and we didn't get everything perfectly aligned on there, but it's pretty close. (This has probably been repeated in other writeups, but from what we heard around here, Lowe's will cut your wood to your *exact* requirements, whereas Home Depot does a rough cut. We don't have a saw, so Lowe's was our friend.) The planks we used for the walls are about a foot in width--one of our biggest concerns with the tortoises' old enclosure, which had glass sides (I know, I know), was that our tortoise could see our dogs, and whether that was causing him unnecessary stress. It seemed better to give him taller walls, and close him off more from stress, than to go with a lower-lipped design even if we could have. We also took a book from the recent post by Ramsey about his indoor townhome-style setup where he used vinyl flooring around the bottom of his enclosure. For $20 we bought a small pallet of "seashore" flooring and I'm in love with the final product. Even with our imperfect construction knowledge, we were able to cut and place the flooring to fit the bottom and sides of the box. Long-term I'll be keeping a suspicious eye on the flooring closest to the light--I'm worried the heat will make the glue soft--but for now it looks really good.
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/utgGl)
Here's a picture of the lights (before we'd completely gotten everything in the enclosure). The light bracket is one we found at Petco--they price match with their own website so we got it for a cool $13.99. The way it comes, it's a peel-n-stick--seems to be meant for glass terrariums, but as you might guess didn't do so well on wood. Luckily, the plastic plate was easy to drill some screws into. In the future we might diversify the light setup, but right now our tort is enjoying warming on the rocks near the infrared lamp and digging to China as he basks in the sun lamp.
(Link to image: https://imgur.com/a/0oI6Y )
And here's Jimothy, enjoying his new space! I haven't seen the usual hide-in-a-corner-for-a-few-days behavior he has when we move him out of and into his home for cleaning---he's doing a lot of ambling around his new space!
We're not done with everything we plan to do with his new space--we'll be adding plants, another hide, etc. etc. When we first discussed this project I wanted to build him a second level and a ramp, and I think with the tall walls we definitely have the opportunity to do it in the future. I'm just not sure, with the amount of square footage that he has, if a second level will add significantly to his engagement/enjoyment beyond satisfying his love of climbing, which we can probably satisfy other ways. I'd appreciate your feedback on what we've done so far and your tips and tricks for spoiling your torts!!