Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i just got finished enlarging my box turtle pen to about 20' x 20' sq. will be landscaping it next day or two. hope they like it, (i think they will.) it needed to be larger because i just doubled my population to 4 turtles! they needed much room. Pictures will follow when landscaping is done.

Good show!
This weekend I'm hoping to have some more work done on my pen expansion. I'm going from an area that was 8'x32' to 32'x32', and it's been LONG and hard. My soil is so hard it's difficult digging the foot deep trenches for the walls. Luckily most of that is done and it's just a matter of putting in more wood then landscaping (then of course working on the 16'x8' pond that will take most of the fall)

i saw your posted pics of you building the pen...it looks like you were working your a$$ off! i tried to avoid the digging thing and worked w/cinder blocks. my ground is pretty hard packed and i feel if the little buggers can dig out of it they deserve to be free. two years ago i lost two of them when they climbed out of it, so i had to put a two inch lip over the top. didn't know they were X-game caliber rock climbers. LOL it took me the majority of the day to complete the task, but it is worth the effort, for me and them.

yeah, my butt has had about all it can handle on this building project. I'm glad it's near completion (well, except for the pen where I need to dig a pond next) The weather here as been into the high 90's for a while and it's really hard to work in the 90's with high humidity.

Ah well, I get paid tomorrow so I'm going to get some more supplies and get going again. I think next weekend will be the one where I finish them up, or at least two weeks from this weekend. I'll have up some photos of the completed project of course, and then some more when the pond is done.

oh, about the ground...

my yard is as hard as concrete if it's dry. Literally. I snapped a mattox handle, bent a hex shaped solid steel pike, and snapped a shovel handle so far in it. On dry days I can spend an hour just digging a hole for a water dish. It's ridiculous. Still, my boxies have managed to dig burrows in two spots. Luckily neigher are near walls, and my new walls are 1 foot deep into the ground, but if any of their burrows happened to point towards a wall in their current pens (which only go a few inches into the ground) they could surface on the outside easily.

It seems a determined turtle is not deterred by hard soil. One of my gals chooses to nest in hard packed spots that take her hours to dig a hole in as deep as one nuckle on my thumb. A turtle's willpower is nothing to disregard!

It's too bad I can't train them to dig their own pond, eh?

willpower overcomes all i guess. have you tried using a tiller to loosen the soil before you dig? we used that technique on my father's pond about four years ago...it was about 36 inches deep and we ran a tiller through it then shoveled loose dirt, then tilled and shoveled etc. made it easier, no doubt. how big of a pond are you putting in? what kind of liner are you using? i am anxiously awaiting pics of your finished work.

The first pond (the one I need done this year, future ponds will come in future years) is going to be a rectangle, 16'x8', the deep end will be along one of the 16' sides. This pond is half the area of a 16x16 pen.

The deep side will be a 16' long trench down to at least 3 feet, then slope up slowly to ground level across the 8' width of the pond. The trench deep spot will have a few inches of sand in it, so any water turbulence in the pond would move stray sand back to the trench and I can keep my filter pumps away from there.

I'm going to use a standard 45 mil liner, but I need to find some places to order them cheaply (that and pumps).

I've thought of the tiller. I have a neighbor that might loan me his, but I have these HUGE rocks in my yard, all over (literally, I've pulled over a dozen boulders I can hardly lift out of the trenching I've done already) and I'm not sure if it's safe for the tiller to run it in that rocky of soil. I'd feel like a schmuck if I busted my neighbors equipment.

if you are able to find a GOOD deal on the liner, please post it here so i can get in on the cheap action. finances are the main reason i can't expand my 8'x4' pond yet. i built it for two 50 cent sized RES that will out grow it this year. they are now about fully palm sized (fingertip to heel and wide as my hand.) one more season and it is useless for them.
-----
"If we are good only because we fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-Albert Einstein