Winterizing the Young Manouria

Yvonne G

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Today I set up part of the Manouria shed to house a 4 yr. and a 5 yr. old Mep. I was going to put them in with the Mee, but I figured they weren't quite big enough to live with those full grown tortoises. So I made the area outside the smaller Mep are up for them. Here's the link to where I showed you the smaller area for two small MEP: https://tortoiseforum.org/threads/winter-enclosure.177932/ The next day when I looked inside this smaller area, the leaves on that plant were totally gone, leaving only stems. Also, even though I've since made a better plywood roof with rigid foam lining, the temperature reading never got any higher than 65F. The only reason it's now showing 78.8F is because I added the 250 watt red brooder light to warm up the whole shed. I guess using the cinder blocks wasn't a good idea. I'm going to have to line the inside with plywood.
Manouria winter area g.jpg

So, here's the outside of their shed:

Manouria winter area d.jpg

Upon moving aside the vinyl strip door - OOPS!, sorry Duc and Rajkumar!
Manouria winter area ee.jpg

Here's the winter area I made for the four and five year olds. When I picked them up from outside they hadn't touched their food, and they were pretty cold to the touch:

Manouria winter area e.jpg Manouria winter area f.jpg
But once inside the shed with all the lights to warm them up, they did sample the food before finding a nice hiding place.

I was going to use the tube type UVB fluorescent bulb, but I didn't have one, so I set them up with a MVB temporarily.

Manouria winter area 4 and 5 yr olds.jpg

Then I sectioned off a portion for the three year olds.

Manouria shelter 3 yr olds a.jpg Manouria shelter 3 yr olds b.jpg Manouria shelter 3 yr olds c.jpg
Hopefully next winter they'll all be big enough I won't need to have them separated and they can share the shed with the Mee (partitioned, of course).
 
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