Mad_Moose
New Member
@Littleredfootbigredheart
I figured I'd do enclosure talk in a separate forum post so its all at least a little bit tidier!
I got my tortoise 'The pacer fitness gram test is a multi stage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. Students begin at the starting line. Once the test begins, the running speed starts slowly, but gets faster each minute after you hear the signal (beep)!' (Pacer for short) out of the blue when one of my coworkers mentioned that she no longer wanted to, or could care for her russian tortoise about 10 days ago. Me being bad decision maker and a bleeding heart said "oh I can take on a tortoise!" (I can but I've never had a reptile before, and all of my previous experiences with tortoises are based on the setups one of my relatives has for their entire collection of turtles and tortoises, which might not translate well to just one tortoise)
This is how he originally arrived, in a 2x4 rabbit hutch enclosure on sand substrate with the floorspace so cluttered he couldn't really make any use of it
The first day I had him I changed his substrate to coco coir+leftover cypress mulch, flattened and increased surface area of his "basking spot" (it wasn't really getting anywhere close with the crap *** lights he came with) and then figured out what bowls that he came with would be easiest to sink into the substrate for a very temporary feeding and water setup (my favorite hardware store was closed because it was too late on a saturday at the time) and offered him some canada thistle that I picked from the pasture to see if he'd be interested
Day 2 Sunday - swapped all of his dishes for terra cotta, got an incandescent bulb to try and get closer to basking temps with an inaccurate thermometer (one of the dials) (involved finding a taller rock and making a ramp of coco coir to it so he was closer to the bulb) and placed orders for a digital laser thermometer, UVB setup, timed thermostat and seed mix so I could start growing him some food other than the store spring mix + offered weeds at different points (also oops didn't know you had to soak mazuri until just recently so I just had it sitting in there as a pedestal for his cuttlebone😝)
Towards the end of week 1 - the thermometer, thermostat and timer arrived - so I got that set up so it would turn off the basking flood if it got above 104 on the sensor
This is merely a stop gap measure for now, until I can get him a bigger enclosure built, I've recently reclaimed a lot of wood from a demolition project in the barn to increase the size of my sheeps winter housing, and I have plans to loft my bed so Pacer can be moved into my room so there's less opportunity for him to accidentally be exposed to the cats and the biohazard that is their saliva.
This is where I'm currently sitting with my conceptual plans, I saw another user on here doing the planters for swapping veggie growth out and I thought it was such a good idea that I want to incorporate it into my final project! I might make the whole thing deeper since I was thinking it might be a good idea to have some permanent plants to help me remember to get the substrate wet while at the hardware store today (got a hosta, and a couple of spider plants for that purpose). I'll also be putting a hardware cloth lid over the top to keep the dog and my cats out (because I have 0 trust in my animals to not act as animals do and get into problems)
Main points/goals
combining floorspace since I don't have much room to work with (which is why the dog crate build will be part of building the base)
access for my short little gremlin arms to spot clean as necessary and clean and fill food and water
trying to encourage full use of the weird shape by setting up back and forth tracks to various resources
TLDR it is work in progress - if anyone has thoughts/suggestions I'd love to hear them!
I figured I'd do enclosure talk in a separate forum post so its all at least a little bit tidier!
I got my tortoise 'The pacer fitness gram test is a multi stage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. Students begin at the starting line. Once the test begins, the running speed starts slowly, but gets faster each minute after you hear the signal (beep)!' (Pacer for short) out of the blue when one of my coworkers mentioned that she no longer wanted to, or could care for her russian tortoise about 10 days ago. Me being bad decision maker and a bleeding heart said "oh I can take on a tortoise!" (I can but I've never had a reptile before, and all of my previous experiences with tortoises are based on the setups one of my relatives has for their entire collection of turtles and tortoises, which might not translate well to just one tortoise)
This is how he originally arrived, in a 2x4 rabbit hutch enclosure on sand substrate with the floorspace so cluttered he couldn't really make any use of it
The first day I had him I changed his substrate to coco coir+leftover cypress mulch, flattened and increased surface area of his "basking spot" (it wasn't really getting anywhere close with the crap *** lights he came with) and then figured out what bowls that he came with would be easiest to sink into the substrate for a very temporary feeding and water setup (my favorite hardware store was closed because it was too late on a saturday at the time) and offered him some canada thistle that I picked from the pasture to see if he'd be interested
Day 2 Sunday - swapped all of his dishes for terra cotta, got an incandescent bulb to try and get closer to basking temps with an inaccurate thermometer (one of the dials) (involved finding a taller rock and making a ramp of coco coir to it so he was closer to the bulb) and placed orders for a digital laser thermometer, UVB setup, timed thermostat and seed mix so I could start growing him some food other than the store spring mix + offered weeds at different points (also oops didn't know you had to soak mazuri until just recently so I just had it sitting in there as a pedestal for his cuttlebone😝)
Towards the end of week 1 - the thermometer, thermostat and timer arrived - so I got that set up so it would turn off the basking flood if it got above 104 on the sensor
This is merely a stop gap measure for now, until I can get him a bigger enclosure built, I've recently reclaimed a lot of wood from a demolition project in the barn to increase the size of my sheeps winter housing, and I have plans to loft my bed so Pacer can be moved into my room so there's less opportunity for him to accidentally be exposed to the cats and the biohazard that is their saliva.
This is where I'm currently sitting with my conceptual plans, I saw another user on here doing the planters for swapping veggie growth out and I thought it was such a good idea that I want to incorporate it into my final project! I might make the whole thing deeper since I was thinking it might be a good idea to have some permanent plants to help me remember to get the substrate wet while at the hardware store today (got a hosta, and a couple of spider plants for that purpose). I'll also be putting a hardware cloth lid over the top to keep the dog and my cats out (because I have 0 trust in my animals to not act as animals do and get into problems)
Main points/goals
combining floorspace since I don't have much room to work with (which is why the dog crate build will be part of building the base)
access for my short little gremlin arms to spot clean as necessary and clean and fill food and water
trying to encourage full use of the weird shape by setting up back and forth tracks to various resources
TLDR it is work in progress - if anyone has thoughts/suggestions I'd love to hear them!
