what's the best way?

[Blgreek08]

What's the best way to make an outdoor hide, and what's the best substrate to put in it just incase a night gets cost then expected. ......I was thinking a flat pot on its side with straw or hay. ....Ilol take any and all opinions to heart, I just want my babies to be happy and healthy

 

[JoesMum]

The important thing is that the shelter is dry. It must not flood or get damp. Joe is probably considerably bigger than your tort, but he has a cold frame which is filled with straw. It is on bare earth in a sheltered spot which gets the sun first thing in the morning.

 

[Blgreek08]

My house is at the top of a hill, no chance of flooding, what is a cold frame

 

[JoesMum]

It's like a small green house with wooden sides and a plexiglass lid that gardeners use for plants. Mine has a door hole cut in the side. I have just seen the wire run you have bought and it is too big for that. Even at the top of the hill, the land is not completely flat ... you need to make sure that there isn't a dip under the shelter that will make the floor of it damp every time it rains.

 

[Madkins007]

When I had red-footeds, I tried a lot of hides/shelters. The one they liked the absolute best was a debris pile with a cover. I just piled some biggish branches, topped it with smaller branches with leaves on them (mulberry when I could find them), and a plastic tarp over the top. I usually found ALL the torts in this pile, and surprisingly enough, they were usually up a level or three from the ground level.

In all of my trials, they seemed to prefer places they had to dig or wedge into over boxes.

 

[Mantissa3]

I noticed baby Gibby digging under a bunch of dried leaves in the garden. I did the same think Madkins007 says here- I put some small twigs down, then piled a bunch of the preferred long, dried leaves over the top and pulled a piece of his shadecloth down over the entire pile and he loves digging in the cypress bark and orchid soil substrate (with heater wire underneath) and just living in the debris pile. ;>)

I'm so glad he feels comforted to hide in a more natural way- he was raised for half his life in a terra cotta flower pot, which didn't give him the feeling of wedging or weight on his back.

We have some medium-sized throw pillows on the floor in the living room, where we sometimes let Gib walk around. He now pushes pillows until they fall over onto his back, then he walks this way and that, carrying the pillows around on his back for 15-30 minutes, it's his new game. When he tires of the pillows, he comes over and sits on my foot and pulls his front legs into his shell until I pick him up.