Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the ideal size of a habitat [ie, square footage?] for boxies kept outside? Is there a magic formula such as #SQF/turtle?

I have an adult and 8 babies. I have planned all along to keep 2 or 3 of the babies, but now I'm wondering about expanding the habitat and keeping all of them (separating males & females, of course). [as long as I'm not breaking the law by having so many in captivity, that is...]

As big as you can make it. Because that won't be big enough to compensate for the ideal wild home range of unlimited acreage.
The habitat we have for ours here is 1000sq ft., which we will probably enlarge again in the future.

I made mine as big as I could and each turtle has well beyond the normal 12 square feet I usually recommend for indoor turtles. But the males all had to be be separated as I was unwilling to let them just them duke it out and see who came out on top and let the smaller or shy ones suffer under a tyrannt's rule. So the large male pen had to be cut down into smaller pens, but they each still have about 25 to 36 square feet each.

Their nighttime pens are smaller-about 12 square feet -but they are sleeping so they don't seem to care but I made them that big because there are times when they must stay in their nighttime pens. I made them big enough for comfort.
Tess

I think I have read that a 2'x4' footprint should be the bare minimum for a single box turtle, so thats 8sq ft, but that was regarding an indoor set-up. So for you 9boxies, 72sq ft total. You could house 4-5 adults in a 4'x8' outdoor inclosure just fine, provided you have a good variety of micro habitats, logs, pool, plants, sandy area, sun, shade, leaf pile, deep rich cool soil, hides, ect., but that should probably be considered the very bare minimum, but like Steph said the bigger the better, use as much space as you have or can afford.
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Jeff Benfer
1.0 cinnamon pastel Python regius
1.1 pastel Python regius
1.1 mojave Python regius
0.3 normal Python regius
1.3 Terrapene carolina thriunguis
2.3 Terrapene carolina carolina
4.1 Kinosternon baurii
1.1 Malaclemys terrapin terrapin
2.2 double het albino and anerythristicThamnophis sirtalis parietalis
1.0 anerythristic Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis
2.3 Iowa snow Thamnophis radix
0.2 het Christmas albino Thamnophis radix
1.1 double het cherry erythristic, albino Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 melanistic Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
2.0 66% het snow Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis
1.1 triple heterozygous for amelanistic,carmel, and stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 anerythristic motley Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 butter p.h. stripe Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 carmel stripe p.h. amel Pantherophis guttatus
0.1 amelanistic p.h. carmel,stripe Pantherophis guttatus

Thanks. That gives me a base-line. Right now, I have well over 100SQFT. Most of that space is dedicated to my adult, which is OK as it gives her more area to explore. The area dedicated to the 8 babies is adjacent to Mom's, but is separated and covered for their safety. This is OK for them as they mostly hide all the time.

Eventually (when the babies are bigger) I plan to cut an opening between the 2 spaces so they can share, but also add another 100 or so shared SQft. They all have lots of micro-climate areas with terrain changes, hidey-holes, water, worm beds, etc.

Something to consider:
It might be a good idea to have two enclosures, one for males and one for females, since the males will breed with any female around (which in this case are close relatives).