I admire what both of you have done for your tortoises. It is so much easier keeping a sulcata in California!
Planning new indoor enclosure
- Thread starter vladimir
- Start date
@Big Charlie Alice is very hard to take care of during the winter in cold. I should rephrase that. Alice makes me worry during these cold days. When I first got here, I was told what I was trying to do, was not going to work well. The first winter we kept her in the kitchen but she was only 17 pounds. The next year we made a small ramp for her to go out to the outside room from the kitchen only during the day. Now that she has grown to 65 pounds she is banished from the kitchen. I think we are doing ok as parents but I don't think most people would...I have seen others do it in Chicago and now I find @vladimir who lives in my neck of the woods. We seem to have a very similar set up but Alice is almost outside..
Alice is expensive and laboring but we love her. We are great pals..BUT she is just a drop in the bucket for I have over 200 chickens to worry about also..
Alice is expensive and laboring but we love her. We are great pals..BUT she is just a drop in the bucket for I have over 200 chickens to worry about also..
That’s very impressive! What’s your overall square footage?
The footprint is 8 foot by 16 foot, and the platform area is 4 foot by 6 foot, so something like 152 square feet.
I understand the worry. Charlie has been so good this winter. Only one time has he not gone into his nightbox and I realized it when it was still light. I was able to coax him into the box, and ever since then, he has been so good about going in. Previous years there were probably 4 or 5 times we had to carry him to his box, and at least a few times that he spent the entire night outside. Luckily they weren't extremely cold nights. You can't afford that kind of mistake with your weather.
