Our tortoise garden is finally done! (Well, I am sure we will do some tweaking over the next months and years... and I'm already wishing I had built it larger!)
The outdoor enclosure is on the West side of our house, so the sun hits here at about 11am, and it gets nice and toasty here. I keep the tortoises inside at night, and bring them out once there is enough sun for them to stay warm here. I have already built the frame for a coldframe, I just have to install the polycarbonate. This will extend the time they can spend outside to a little earlier in the Spring and later in the Fall.
- Here is one of the 5 Russian tortoises who gets to roam in here. They really seem to love it, and have each found their favorite hiding spots!
- I am working on building a few dry hide spots, but in the meantime, I put several flower pots in here, a board propped up with some rocks (a favorite for 3 of the 5 RTs), and a piece of driftwood (I'm having trouble keeping aggressive spiders from building funnel webs under the driftwood - any hints?)
- The driftwood hide - thanks @lynnedit!
- The view of the length of the enclosure. The back portion is under the eaves of our roof, so less grows there, because it stays dry. All the plants are tortoise safe, and I've spread seeds for edible weeds from The Tortoise Lady all about that are sprouting now.
To prevent escape, I dug a trench all around the enclosure, and filled it with pavers and river rock. Then I covered the trench with cement pavers. The dirt covers the pavers (so they don't damage the plastrons), but if the tortoises try to dig at the edges, they will get nowhere. Digging the trench was the hardest work.
- As I find tortoise-safe plants and weeds in my garden, I transplant them into the tortoise enclosure...
- Here is Lady, my largest female (more than 1100g!) climbing the rock basking area. It's shady here in the evening, but gets good sun all afternoon. The rocks hold onto the heat for hours.
I've tried to make the 'terrain' as interesting as possible in the tortoise enclosure, with little hills and valleys, different kinds of dirt and rocks, obstacles etc. for them to walk over or around.
And finally, a just-for-fun pic of my smallest female, Jill. She has already started getting a lot darker since I started putting her outside on warm days. Today happened to be bath day, so she looks clean and shiny... honestly, I think dirty tortoises are the cutest thing ever, so I let them stay dusty for the rest of the week. Seems to be good for their shells, too.
Before I was even finished building the tortoise garden I already wished I had made it bigger... that will likely have to wait a few years. I used free re-claimed wood and hardware cloth that I got from a neighbor and off of Craigslist. I got about half of the pavers for free, and purchased the rest (at less than $1 each that wasn't bad). I bought good decking screws, but aside from that, this project was almost free. The plants are all ones that I already had in my garden, or grown from seeds.
Since there is no picture of this, I should add that I have 2 water dishes in the tortoise enclosure - one that is very shallow, and one that they can bathe and soak in if they want.
Oh, and I have gotten a real fishnet that will be suspended above the enclosure, to prevent crows and hawks from flying in. I'm not worried about little birdies, and I bring the tortoises inside at night, so raccoons and possums aren't so much a concern. Our neighbor's cat is also too fat to jump over our 6-ft fence... so we should be safe in that regard, too.
The outdoor enclosure is on the West side of our house, so the sun hits here at about 11am, and it gets nice and toasty here. I keep the tortoises inside at night, and bring them out once there is enough sun for them to stay warm here. I have already built the frame for a coldframe, I just have to install the polycarbonate. This will extend the time they can spend outside to a little earlier in the Spring and later in the Fall.
- Here is one of the 5 Russian tortoises who gets to roam in here. They really seem to love it, and have each found their favorite hiding spots!
- I am working on building a few dry hide spots, but in the meantime, I put several flower pots in here, a board propped up with some rocks (a favorite for 3 of the 5 RTs), and a piece of driftwood (I'm having trouble keeping aggressive spiders from building funnel webs under the driftwood - any hints?)
- The driftwood hide - thanks @lynnedit!
- The view of the length of the enclosure. The back portion is under the eaves of our roof, so less grows there, because it stays dry. All the plants are tortoise safe, and I've spread seeds for edible weeds from The Tortoise Lady all about that are sprouting now.
To prevent escape, I dug a trench all around the enclosure, and filled it with pavers and river rock. Then I covered the trench with cement pavers. The dirt covers the pavers (so they don't damage the plastrons), but if the tortoises try to dig at the edges, they will get nowhere. Digging the trench was the hardest work.
- As I find tortoise-safe plants and weeds in my garden, I transplant them into the tortoise enclosure...
- Here is Lady, my largest female (more than 1100g!) climbing the rock basking area. It's shady here in the evening, but gets good sun all afternoon. The rocks hold onto the heat for hours.
I've tried to make the 'terrain' as interesting as possible in the tortoise enclosure, with little hills and valleys, different kinds of dirt and rocks, obstacles etc. for them to walk over or around.
And finally, a just-for-fun pic of my smallest female, Jill. She has already started getting a lot darker since I started putting her outside on warm days. Today happened to be bath day, so she looks clean and shiny... honestly, I think dirty tortoises are the cutest thing ever, so I let them stay dusty for the rest of the week. Seems to be good for their shells, too.
Before I was even finished building the tortoise garden I already wished I had made it bigger... that will likely have to wait a few years. I used free re-claimed wood and hardware cloth that I got from a neighbor and off of Craigslist. I got about half of the pavers for free, and purchased the rest (at less than $1 each that wasn't bad). I bought good decking screws, but aside from that, this project was almost free. The plants are all ones that I already had in my garden, or grown from seeds.
Since there is no picture of this, I should add that I have 2 water dishes in the tortoise enclosure - one that is very shallow, and one that they can bathe and soak in if they want.
Oh, and I have gotten a real fishnet that will be suspended above the enclosure, to prevent crows and hawks from flying in. I'm not worried about little birdies, and I bring the tortoises inside at night, so raccoons and possums aren't so much a concern. Our neighbor's cat is also too fat to jump over our 6-ft fence... so we should be safe in that regard, too.
Last edited by a moderator: