Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Tess,

I love your outside box turtle enclosure and wondered if you would share plans on how to make something similar.

Are the front posts just fence posts cut down? And to what height? How far down do you have them in the ground? Do you have anything along the inside of the fenceline to discourage them from digging out?

Any other useful information about how you constructed your enclosure would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if anyone could post instructions on how to make one of the night pens like boxienuts made, I would appreciate it.

Curtis

Curtis, I will have my husband write something up and answer your questions soon, but the short write-up is I designed the pen and he did the actual building. I said there had to be a barrier under all the external walls and he buried about 16 inches of metal sheets used to make house gutters. The walls are 12 inches high between the two pens (males and females)and 16 for the outer walls or capped if shorter. He used several types of building material-pressure treated wood planks and posts, the metal siding, flat rocks, limestone and concrete blocks, vinyl lattice and natural logs. Tess

Thanks so much! I look forward to your husband's write-up. It surprises me that 16 inches for the outer walls is high enough. Interesting.

If it's easier, you can e-mail me the instructions, unless you want to post it for everyone to see. Thanks again.

Curtis
curtis9980@hotmail.com

>>Thanks so much! I look forward to your husband's write-up. It surprises me that 16 inches for the outer walls is high enough. Interesting.

My turtles are three-toeds and ornates They are the smaller of the box turtles. If the walls are not straight up and slick, then 16 may not be enough. In my book I say 16-20 inches but you have to build the walls as high as neccessary to keep your turtles inside. Tess

Curtis,
My pen is not a night time pen although it could certainly be use for that, if you had a large open day pen like Tess's. There is no way I would trust to have my box turtles in an open pen like that because my wife and I are at work all day, and I am sometimes gone for days at a time for my job, and we have way way way to many critters around our house that would love to have turtle on the half shell for lunch. However if you have the space and feel that it would be safe for the turtles, I'm sure the turtles would love it. My turtles spend some time walking around and basking in the morning, but then spend the majority of the rest of the day burrowed in the substrate or under a hide log. I did take some pictures during the building process of the pen that I can post later.
Jeff
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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

Sorry, Jeff. I shouldn't have assumed. But you're exactly right. I'm thinking of doing some sort of mixture of a larger open and one like yours. I have the room for something bigger, but I too don't trust leaving it open: I'm pretty sure we have racoons and I know for sure opposums.

This enclosure-building thing is not coming easy to me. I started digging trenches around where I measured, and ran into three huge tree roots from my 70-foot cottonwood, plus the literally hundreds of roots I cut through from about six trees I cut down when we bought the house in September. Then I went to Home Depot and they want so much for lumber, it's depressing. At least I don't have any BTs waiting for me to get it done. I can take my time until I find a few to adopt...

Here is a pic of my outdoor habitat for 3-toed boxies. I use cement backer boards cut in half lengthwise for the sides. It is durable for outdoors and easy to work with. To keep them from digging out, I have pressure treated 1"x2" boards running along the inside base of the walls with 10" galvanized nails driven through and into the ground every 3 inches. The system is moveaable and expandable easily. As a matter of fact, I added 100 sq feet to the enclosure over the weekend. They have plenty of shade, sunlight and hide spots, with several plants ranging from tomato, cast iron plants, aloe, strawberry and ferns. I have added a mister to simulate rain in the drier times.

Well, I constructed a temporary enclosure today to get my plants started and to provide a home in case I get a BT soon. It feels kinda silly to build a home for something you don't even have yet, but here's some pics.

It's four feet by four feet. I planted two hostas, dandelion, and some Iris moss. There's 80% organic compost, 15% natural soil mix in, and hardwood mulch on the right and some leaf litter (not in pics) in the front. I'll add a water basin, basking rock, and a couple more hide spots, but I'll wait till I get an actual turtle or two. Also, I'll add a locking, latching lid.

Here's a pic of the night time pens-they are attached to the open, day pens. I too must worry about raccoons. You will want to put corner caps on your 4 by 4 pen. Good luck in getting a captive bred turtle or 2

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Tess Cook
Box Turtle Care and Conservation Website
www.boxturtlesite.info

Personally, I think the 4x4 you have built there would do fine for a couple hatchlings to juvis for a few years, or maybe even to house a single adult, but if you want to have a colony you probably want to pursue the bigger open pen idea, the bigger the better. I'm starting to think that maybe down the road I might try building a cinder block wall with bricks sunk in the ground around the inside bottom edge around my garden pond, if nothing else for a weekend gettaway place for my turtles.
Good luck with your aquisition, if you are not in a big hurry to breed, I hope you consider a CBB hatchling as opposed to a wild caught adopted rescue, not that those turtles don't need a home too, but why not support the people who have spent the time and effort to breed in captivity, and it's fun to watch them grow and mature both physically and behaviorally over the years.
Jeff

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Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus

Oh, absolutely I'm going to construct a bigger one. Actually, the 4x4 is sitting in the middle of the 12x6 site I have already started digging up. The problem is, I need a truck to buy and haul the 35 8-foot landscape timbers I plan on using to construct it. But the 4x4 is good for now, and, like you said, it will be good to house a couple of juvies or an adult.

I would get babies, but I kind of would rather have juvies or an adult. I have two aquatic babies (painted and spotted) and I'm getting impatient now with wanting them to be adults.

By the way, Jeff, did you mean to shape your pond like a heart?

No i didnt mean for it to be a heart but i see what you mean. Well, if your getting impatient with the water turtles getting to adult, you would be really, really impatient with box turtles because they take ten times as long, roughly 8-10 plus years for boxies versus 2-3 yrs for water turtles conditions dependant. But it really is a joy the time they are growing and developing skills and memories.
Jeff
-----
Jeff Benfer
You'll get your regius's to the wall, man!
1.0 pastel Python regius
0.1 mojave Python regius
0.1 normal Python regius
0.2 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.1 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.2 Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.1 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
1.1 heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus