Outdoor enclosure idea rough sketch

[jeasy88]

I made a quick sketch of an outdoor enclosure for my 1 month sulcata.

I live in Florida and temps are great most of the year, nights and winters will be fought with heating lamps or CHE.

The sketch is basically a plywood box with a open front with a lip to keep the sully inside. I want to have it outside 24/7 facing the sun 40% of the day. It will be on a stand a few feet off the ground. The roof will be designed to keep out rain.

I will regulate 80 temp with a CHE on thermostat and provide a water supply and Humid hide. The sun will be the natural basking spot and UVB.

I plan to use this until it gets big enough to roam a outdoor ground enclosure.

Any comments? Or suggestions?

 

[MichaelNguyen7396]

At 1 month they are still very young to be outside, even if you have heat on and it can roams a little bit, when night fall It will still get very cold and if the enclosure don't have a good insulation around it, it could cause problems to your sulcata. I think it best for your torts to be inside for the first 1-2 years. But during these times let it roam outside for few hours a day

 

[jeasy88]

The rescue I bought it from said he keeps all of his torts out side even the hatchlings. I couldn't tell from his pictures but I believe he uses a similar design as I have listed. These torts are born in the wild and live in these conditions just fine. Providing a heat source at night should increase the odds...

Has anyone kept hatchlings outside? Any improvements I can make to my design?

 

[erdavis]

When my sulcata was a hatchling I was told to keep him inside and maybe only take him outside for a couple of hours. From what I remember in the wild they live in the desert and stay underground where it is nice and toasty and very humid for the first couple of years. Just because where you got it kept them outside doesn't mean it is best, maybe they didn't have room for all their torts inside.
That design looks good for a couple of hours a day and when he is a little older One thing I am also worried about is that I would move the water way from the corner/edges. Many tortoises like to try to climb up the edges and might tip upside down and I would hate for yours to land upside down in the water bowl :/

But of course I'm no expert and someone who knows more might have some other input, good luck with your new baby

 

[bouaboua]

I think one month old baby Sulcata are just too small to stay outside even with protracted enclosure. Then is you want to build an outdoor enclosure might as well to build a larger one, Sulcata will out grow that 2' X 4' one with in 6 months.

 

[jeasy88]

Thanks for the tips. My idea behind this is that torts are born and live outside their whole lives in the wild. I want to mimic that as much as possible, but with some safety and security measures in place. Such as adding a CHE or heating element for cold nights, and a barrier of sorts from predators.

I wouldn't be opposed to building a outdoor ground enclosure and a insulated hide with regulated temps. I am just worried about Florida downpours for such a small tortoise.

Any creative ideas that you have seen to house smaller torts outside?

 

[Yvonne G]

If you want to mimic the nature that baby tortoises live in, you'll have to provide the baby with a deep burrow underground where it stays fairly humid and moist. Ever wonder why you never see baby tortoises on nature shows? They stay hidden in the ground or deep under the bushes most of the time. Living in an open box is not nature. If you want to set the baby up outside in a safe and secure pen on the ground, with a burrow - that's nature.

 

[jeasy88]

Sounds like that is the best plan Yvonne. Do you think a partially underground burrow will suffice in Florida weather? One that I can dig 2 feet down and then a safe stone cover with dirt mound over top? This would be to minimize cave ins. Or something possibly like Tom's underground bunker?

http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/underground-tortoise-bunker.18244/

 

[Yvonne G]

Tom's underground bunker is a great idea. You will need access from above because there are always times you want to get at the tortoise. You don't want him to be unreachable.

 

[Dizisdalife]

One of the primary reasons for keeping a baby sulcata in an indoor enclosure is safety for the animal. As a small tortoise they are prey for almost anything else out there. I would be afraid that at night there would be raccoons, possum, perhaps cats, coyotes, or small rodents that could get to a small tortoise. Of course the daytime has its predators too and some protection is needed there as well. The Florida outdoors, although a great place to raise sulcata, is not the native environment for sulcata, or the "wild" that they come from. We don't know much about how baby sulcata live in the wild. It is my hunch that only a small percentage of them survive to adulthood.