sulcata summer burrow

[Dozerspur]

I live in Arizona. I need to build a controlled burrow for my Sulcata. How deep do I go to keep Dozer cool in summer. I've had to fill in 1 burrow as he went into the neighbors yard and 1 because he went to far under patio.

 

[Tom]

I prefer to start a burrow where I want it and let them dig it themselves. That is what I do here, and then block the entrance in the fall and make them sleep in their heated insulated night boxes over winter until the warm (hot) weather returns.

If you want to dig your own, I went three feet deep for a two foot box and had a foot of dirt over it. It had a hatch on top of the underground box, and a cover tunnel that went down to the box. There was a sloped rain cover over the entrance tunnel to keep it from flooding in heavy winter rain, and I mounted a CHE and two RHPs down there set on a thermostat so they could use it all winter long. The sides lasted almost 10 years before they began to rot. The box would sometimes climb into the high 80s when summer temps were over 100 for weeks in a row. Unfortunately, the pics are gone.