Please advise with RF outdoor enclosure build in central Texas climate zone

[tctpa523]

And I just noticed that you just recently joined in! Warm welcome to TFO!!!! And thank you for your ideas.

Thank you. Definitely new to the forum, but I have been working with redfoots since 2002. Hopefully in 10 years, my group will rival that of Allegra or Jeff... lol. I went a little crazy last year and purchased some amazing cherryheads, and a group of hypos and hets. I've been lucky with my normal breeding group, and am really excited for my "teenage" group to mature. You had mentioned wanting seed to plant edible plants and grasses in the enclosure you're setting up. I use forest seed mix in my outdoor setups. The tortoises love it, and it seems to have a pretty good mix of grasses and other edible ground cover. I will be glad to provide you the link. http://sulcatafood.com/All_Store_Items.html

 

[Pearly]

Hi Guys! I got to spend couple if hrs working outside yesterday. We are having Spring weather in central Texas. Last night we had very good rain, and even some lightening! Anyway, i started tearing weeds out where I'll be prepping the plot for the Babies' outdoor pen on the rt. hand side there are 3 old raised veggie beds that I had there for my children. I'm tearing down those big garden timbers and all that good dirt in there will make an awesome tort garden (very fertile soil there). This is the area that I'll be enclosing. Part of it has full morning sun exposure and part (to the left) is covered by large oak tree canopy. This enclosure will stretch all around this side of the house and probably go down under that big window and to the left and straight down hill to give access to full time shade, and more room to walk. For now I pulled 2 big boxes of weeds and if the weather stays this way I'll have this side prepped for laying cinder blocks in just few days

 

[DutchieAmanda]

This looks like a really nice spot! However, oak leaves and acorns can be toxic, so be careful your torts cannot eat them...

Good luck with the build!

 

[Pearly]

Thank you. Definitely new to the forum, but I have been working with redfoots since 2002. Hopefully in 10 years, my group will rival that of Allegra or Jeff... lol. I went a little crazy last year and purchased some amazing cherryheads, and a group of hypos and hets. I've been lucky with my normal breeding group, and am really excited for my "teenage" group to mature. You had mentioned wanting seed to plant edible plants and grasses in the enclosure you're setting up. I use forest seed mix in my outdoor setups. The tortoises love it, and it seems to have a pretty good mix of grasses and other edible ground cover. I will be glad to provide you the link. http://sulcatafood.com/All_Store_Items.html

Ahhh! Good luck with your tort group then and thank you for sharing the info

 

[Pearly]

This looks like a really nice spot! However, oak leaves and acorns can be toxic, so be careful your torts cannot eat them...

Good luck with the build!

Yes! There is a lot of work ahead of me! The are also 2 big oleander bushes by that large window. I think I'll just cut them down. The oak tree is the hard one, it's a nice tree, I'll have to think about that one. At the beginning the enclosure will have to be covered with some metal screen to keep those babies safe from predators. There's owl family nesting somewhere in those oak trees by my house, and other critters. There is a golf course on the other side of my street, so lots of green and wooded places. The other day on my way home at night I saw fox crossing the road. When we first moved here there were coyotes here and even sightings of bobcat on the golfcourse. That was 19 yrs ago, now that we have populated this beautiful area with homes, roads, cars, people i systematically destroyed the habitat, I have probably no reason to worry about those big predators, so lightweight framed screen should be enough. And thank you for the mention of the oak thing. I kinda knew (heard about) it, but it was not really hitting home till now, so I appreciate that.