Predator Question

[bigsteaks]

i am going to be constructing an outdoor enclosure for my russian boys Tank and Leonard. I understand the basics as far as their burrowing and landscape requirements but my wife thinks the entire habitat needs to be covered with a chicken wire type lid to keep potential predators out?????
we live in southern NJ and the boys will be outdoors from late spring to early fall.
Any ideas or thoughts on the subject are encouraged please!!!!!!

 

[Tom]

Some people risk it and get away with it uncovered. The safe bet is to cover it, of course. Kind of depends on your particular area and environment. Many of my enclosures are left uncovered, but my tortoises don't stay outside at night until they are bigger. My russians are going into a big 28x13' enclosure that is completely enclosed with welded wire. This is both to keep any predators OUT, but also to keep them IN. They are little escape artists.

 

[Brewster320]

You also have to think about human predators. Thats something a lot of people over look.

As far as animals go though I've seen raccoons, skunks, opossums, red and grey foxes, red tail and cooper hawks, great horned owls, weasels, mink, fishers, dogs, cats, and coyotes all in my yard at one point or another so I have a locking hardware cloth cover, why risk it? And I live just 20 minutes outside of Boston, so really any suburb can be at risk for predators.

Also chicken wire will not keep predators out, if they want in they can easily get in, all its meant to do is keep chickens in. If you want to keep predators out you need hardware cloth.

 

[argus333]

ya hardware cloth works great.

 

[Tom]

Or welded wire. I use the one by two inch size. Comes in 100x4' rolls.