Outdoor IS enclosure Gainesville FL

[PA2019]

Hello everyone!

My name is Patrick and I moved to Gainesville FL in April. Going from AZ to FL, I wanted to build an outdoor enclosure where I could maintain a trio of mainland IS year round. I started the project in mid April and it took around 3 weeks. I would say the hardest part was having to redo stuff, as I had never built anything like this before.

Here is the start. I mapped out a 24x6 square and started digging, thinking the overhang of the tree would provide the perfect amount of shade.......well 4 hours later I realized that there were 4 billion tree roots, and I would not be able to rototill the soil like I wanted...


So I mapped out a new location, this time with no tree roots! It took another 4 hours, but I had a bare batch of soil work with.


Coming from AZ, where the ground is caliche I was amazed to find out the soil here is extremely sandy haha. My hope for the pen was to plant/seed enough to not have to feed everyday. This meant the soil needed to be boosted quite a bit for the plant growth I wanted.

I ended up buying 12 extra large bags of organic topsoil, 2 extra large bags of peat moss, a 25 pound bag of worm casting, and 4 bricks of compressed coir. Pic is about halfway through all the bags



Once I finished adding the soil I mixed everything up with the rototiller and began to work on the walls, roof and electrical aspects of the pen.

 

[Yvonne G]

Great! Welcome to the Forum! Pardon my ignorance, but what is an IS?

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Hello, Patrick, and a very warm welcome to Tortoise Forum.
Good job, but I also am unaware of the meaning of IS.

 

[Tom]

Indian Star?

I think housing them on sandy soil like that will prove to be a mistake. Tortoises and sand don't mix very well.

In any case, hello and welcome.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Indian Star?

I think housing them on sandy soil like that will prove to be a mistake. Tortoises and sand don't mix very well.

In any case, hello and welcome.

Clever, clever Tom.
Silly, silly Adam.
Bet you're right.

 

[PA2019]

Great! Welcome to the Forum! Pardon my ignorance, but what is an IS?

Sorry about that, Tom is right, Indian star tortoise.

 

[PA2019]

Once I got the dirt figured out I went to work on building the pen walls. As you can see from some photos I have a dog, Maya, who is the curious George type. I decided on making the pen walls 3 feet high as a deterrent to her and the feral cats that roam the area. I don't have many photos during this part of the construction unfortunately, but each 4ft vertical post was cemented in a small bucket to reduce shifting, and then buried 1 foot into the ground. I attached plastic fencing along the bottoms of the side boards before burying the board/plastic fencing 1 foot as well.

I wanted to angle the top of the pen for drainage purposes so I tried to have the backside of the pen 6 inches higher than the front. It wasn't perfect, but I got the slant I was looking for eventually.

 

[PA2019]

Before I buried the edging of the fence I decided to try and increase drainage along the perimeter and also making it harder for escapes and intruders. I bought white marble chips, dug a trench along the perimeter, and laid the stones on the outside and inside edges of the pen.


At this point I was happy with how the fence turned out and started to think about what kind of roof I wanted for the pen. After stopping by a local refurbishment store I noticed they were selling used signposts from a recently finished election, $2! They measured 4x6, so I grabbed 6 total and got to work.

 

[PA2019]

The signposts were solid, but I was planning on placing them on a hinge to lift up so I decided to reinforce the corners of each one with some steel rectangles. Once they were stronger I bought sun blocker and covered the front 4 feet of the posts to give shade for back portion of each pen. The blocker really helped, as the temps dropped almost 10 degrees during the hottest part of the day. Over the top of the sunshade I stapled opaque plastic sheeting to try and keep the back 1/3rd of the pen out of the rain. For the front 2 feet I took wire fencing and stapled it to the roof framing to complete the pen roof. The last step was to add hinges to the back of the pen to allow the roof to go up and rest on the fencing behind the pen. I also added some rope to pull the front of the roof up from behind.

 

[mshine1217]

Maya tested

 

[Alex Z]

Cannot wait to see the final product. Incredible build!

 

[PA2019]

With the roof nearly done I went to work on building heated houses for the trio. With my location I don't need anything too strong, but I also wanted to make sure they had a place to go to at night that stayed above 80. I ended up purchasing 3 (9x12in 25 watt) small animal heating pads from K& H, and running all 3 to a temp controller on the backside of the pen.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NVC7DO/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20



Since it rains all the time around here I bought an electrical junction box to protect the wiring, cut a square out of the front, and put a piece of plexiglass over it so I could look at the house temps without having to open the box all the time. Everything is sealed really well, thanks to a ton of glue haha, and is set from 80-86 degrees. I almost always find the tortoises fully stretched out on the heating pads sleeping in the morning.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZYN393X/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20




I made 3 houses out of left over wood around the house. The wood is thick, and sealed with aquarium caulking. I added a hinge top so I could easily temp gun the pads if I wanted. I also used the remaining plastic sheeting underneath and on top of each house to limit moisture and hopefully stop the wood from rotting.

 

[Alex Z]

Amazing!!

 

[Alaskamike]

I often tell folks , the purchase of the torts will be the least of your effort & expense. This is why I often hesitate to give a tort away to someone who says they can't afford to buy one.

Nice job. It's clear you go to great effort to provide the optimum environment ❗️

 

[PA2019]

I often tell folks , the purchase of the torts will be the least of your effort & expense. This is why I often hesitate to give a tort away to someone who says they can't afford to buy one.

Nice job. It's clear you go to great effort to provide the optimum environment ❗️

Thanks! It's true that the tortoises are the small investment. But I am happy I spent the time planning the enclosure out, as its basically a turn key operation now.

 

[PA2019]

So the last step was to plant everything, add gravel and orchid bark as a top layer to the soil, and seed the pens. For the established plants I chose grasses, trying to provide shade and give the tortoises a sense of security. It's amazing how well they blend in with the grass, I sometimes spend several minutes trying to find them. Near my home I found an area that had a ton of dandelions, so I transplanted around 10-12 in each pen, and they have taken off. I used a bunch of different seeds for the pens, everything from chickweed to Testudo mix.








Thanks for looking at my build thread!