Our tortoise garden - lots of pics

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biochemnerd808

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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!)
Tortoise garden 1.JPG

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.

Tortoise Garden 2.JPG - 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!

Tortoise Garden 3.JPG - 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?)

Tortoise Garden 6.JPG - The driftwood hide - thanks @lynnedit!

Tortoise Garden 4.JPG - 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.

Tortoise Garden 5.JPG - As I find tortoise-safe plants and weeds in my garden, I transplant them into the tortoise enclosure...

Tortoise Garden 7.JPG - 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.

Jill.JPG 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.
 
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Flash2013

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Awesome! I'm sure they will love it and continue to love it. For the record, if you are anything like me, you will always add to and improve the babies home. It can be addicting but fun for all. Thanks for sharing! [GREEN HEART][TURTLE]
 

Jacqui

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You did an amazing job! I don't think there is ever a single one of my enclosures that I don't wish I had made it a bit bigger. :D They always sound like so much on paper, but once you start adding things, you soon realize how small it really is. That's my theory any how. :D
 

Pokeymeg

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Gorgeous! I'm so jealous! My tort would be jealous to if he saw these photos!

I almost didn't recognize your torts without their tortoise cozies! =P
 

biochemnerd808

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Haha, you're funny, @Pokeymeg. :) Yeah, they get to play in their tortoise garden in the nude. No cozies necessary...

Pokeymeg said:
Gorgeous! I'm so jealous! My tort would be jealous to if he saw these photos!

I almost didn't recognize your torts without their tortoise cozies! =P
 

thatrebecca

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Wow! What a great enclosure! I love the fencing you used. It's really attractive. I'm also interested in what you said about the torts not damaging their plastrons. My torts's burrow has a concrete roof and they scrape their shells on it from time to time when they wedge in the corners. Wish I could think of a way around that, though they don't seem to mind.
 

biochemnerd808

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Thank you, @thatrebecca. :)

There are plenty of exposed rocks for the tortoises to climb over, and a healthy tortoise lifts itself up off the ground high enough that there shouldn't be too much wear on the plastron. I was more worried about the edge between the dirt and the cement, so I added enough dirt that about 1/2 an inch of dirt covers the cement.
I've seen people put flexible rubber sheeting over a concrete roof... or repurposing the lid of a rubbermaid? I'd assume you could find something (a bit of an inner tube?) to attach to the roof so the torts don't mess up their shells on the way in.

thatrebecca said:
Wow! What a great enclosure! I love the fencing you used. It's really attractive. I'm also interested in what you said about the torts not damaging their plastrons. My torts's burrow has a concrete roof and they scrape their shells on it from time to time when they wedge in the corners. Wish I could think of a way around that, though they don't seem to mind.


On a side note, the fencing is actually just posts, with the hardware cloth staple-gunned onto the posts, then a 1x2 railing, with a 1x4 railing over top that. :) It looks nice, but was easy and cheap to do.
 

mike taylor

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Nice I like them drift wood hides.

Sent from my C771 using TortForum mobile app
 
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