Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With winter comming around, Ive decided I want to build a new indoor pen for my torts. They are both sulcatas, 3 yrs old. I was wondering if people would mind posting pics of their indoor enclosures even if they are not for sulcata's. Im trying to get ideas and would appreciate the help. Thanks a bunch

Rick

here's a pic of his until he was 3. Functional and the "hides"
are L shaped pieces of wood (bottom is under substrate) so he
cannot climb these in any way as they are 90 degrees straight up.
The one "privacy wall" was where he slept behind. The other was
his basking wall which he always looked out from behind to see
what I was doing. This cage worked well when he was tiny, as
it was all set up with hides, and branches and things to explore.
You can see that on my website under "My tortoies" which is
in bad need of being updated. Anyways, as he got bigger he became
more destructive in the cage and required more of a "holding pen"
that was functional - heat and sleeping areas.
The top opened anywhere for cleaning - you have to be able to reach
things, it was 8 ft. long by 2 1/2 ft deep, 2 feet high. As long
as I could easily pick him up this was fine.

My Tortoise Teddy

Here's the one he used from 3-4 yrs. old, it's 8 ft. long by
6 ft. deep, 2 ft. high walls, like a "play pen". The door
allowed him to come and go as he pleased under supervised outings
in the house. - he started knocking down furniture - flipped
on of my piano benches and generally was easily capable of damaging
the sheet rock just walking by the walls closely. Now he's outside
in his own building. The way I cleaned this was with swiffer
sweeper! same as I do in his outdoor house now when all the
substrate is out. To spot clean I would put baggies on my feet
and have to step into this pen, to get to things. I tried every
substrate imaginable and all produced dust (not OK as I'm a clean
freako), from walking through it. Anyway, I'm happy with him being
outside now in his own cottage! and so is everyone else in my
family. If he needs to come in now, he can stay in his portable
fence pen for a while under supervision as he can walk off with
that thing. These are some strong beasts! Depending on how
big yours are (don't sound too big) you could manage with an indoor
pen for a while yet. Good luck. By the way, both pens were made
of melamine (one oak color and the other one white). and are
terribly heavy. I gave the brown one away to someone on this
forum last year. The white one was disassembled and used for
interior parts of his new outdoor house.

here he is basing in that white pen. Tips for making pens:
make sure it's "waterproof" use aquarium sealant for all edges
inside so nothing leaks out. We had a piece of clear plastic
under the floor of our cages even though they had bottoms of
melamine just to protect our floor (new house). Make it
as big as you can - it won't last long enough anyways! Make
sure you can clean all parts of it somehow. Be able to see
your tortoises at all time - no hiding areas you can't monitor.
Assume they'll get hurt on any stupid thing and make it tort proof.
I always fed mine outside of his pen, but when I occasionally
left food in there I put it on sheets of newspaper.

I don't have a way to post photos, but I can describe my leopard tortoise's pen. My pen is 4x6 feet and is paved with 1x1 foot paving stones. That works well for me because I can pull up stones and stick shallow flower pots in the holes for my tort to graze. Also, if she poops I can just pull up a stone or two and wash them off in the sink. It helps keep her nails from getting too long too. I used white-wire closet shelving for the walls. Each shelf has a 1-inch lip on it, so I just set the paving stones on the lip to hold the walls up, and then I twisty-tied the corners to make sure they held together. There is also a drop cloth under the stones to protect the floor.

The whole thing cost about $75, and it is pretty easy to put together and take apart. I got everything at Lowes. Hope that helps some.
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3.5.1 leopard geckos
0.1.0 leopard tortoise
0.1.0 asian leaf turtle
1.0.0 ball python
0.1.0 adopted cat
0.1.0 hamster