Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It's the time of year to take a good look at all of it & make sure it's all in working order.
This morning we learned the hard way that we should've taken that advice.
We have an atomic clock that we bought last year because it gives you the temp indoors & with the remote sensor thingy that came with it, it gives you the temp outdoors too.
We bought it so that we could put the sensor in the tortoise mansion.
I looked at it this morning & it said it's 59.1 degrees in the mansion so I raced outside to check on Her Majesty Miss Destiny & found the ceramic heat emitter was cold. Thankfully I keep a spare in the house. I started to switch it out when I realized NONE of the electricity is on in the mansion, even the light won't come on.
We checked & found that the main switch had been tripped so we turned it back on. Still the CHE is cold so I took it out & found that it had blown out & that is what tripped the switch off in the first place.

Now I wonder if I had taken the CHE & it's lamp out & cleaned it up before using it... would that have happened?
That thing blowing out the way it did ruined the ceramic socket Zoo Med lamp we were using so we'll be out buying a new one today (if DH would ever turn that boring football game off) LOL

I cleaned up the main heating system for our house last week because I knew it was going to be cool enough this week to turn it on.. why didn't I think to do the same for the mansion? I don't know but I won't forget it next year, that's for sure
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PHRatz

Hi, do you have any pictures of your tortoise mansion and how you have it set up for the winter? I'd love to see and hear about them if you do. It sure has cooled off here (I hate it!).

Thanks,
Troya

I don't have pictures, I've been wanting to add some to my photo album but my stupid camera broke! It's just a little plastic part that holds the batteries in that broke off but I checked into getting it repaired, it'll cost more to repair than it'll cost to buy a new camera. So long story, long story.. lol I hope to have a new camera very soon. As soon as I do I'm going to get some photos of this mansion.

I can describe our mansion though it's a square shaped building & at the moment without all my caffeine I can't remember for the life of me what size it is. I think it's 5 by 6 feet but its only about 3 feet high. It sort of looks like it could be a house for a Great Dane.
My DH built it, it's made up of a concrete floor with cinder block walls. It's wired for electricity so there's a light switch & an electrical outlet to plug the heaters into. We don't use lighting to heat it up we just use that for ourselves more than anything else.
He went with these materials because believe it or not, it cost less than wood. He bought every thing he needed at Lowe's.
He put insulation inside the roof then covered that on the inside with a ceiling. The roof is basically flat & it's shingled, he put handles on it so we can open the top for cleaning. It's so heavy though that if I need to clean when he's not here, I just get on my hands & knees & scrub with a brush.

We have a Kane heat mat on one side with a 250 watt ceramic heat emitter pointing at one corner above the heat mat.
This way she has heat from above & below or she can move to the other corner to have heat only from below or she can sit on the other side where there is no heat at all. For a door he put plastic carpet liner that he put slits in so that she can walk through it but when it's really cold we cover that up. He hasn't made a wooden door yet but so far with the big piece we have we can move it any time we want.
So far it's been a great home for her. I'll get photos as soon as I can.
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PHRatz

As I described the mansion I realized I needed to get outside & get that door opened for her. Scrubbing is what I am about to do too. lol
We've had chilly weather since last Thursday, our sulcata hasn't been out much. I knew she was due for a lot of pooping & yes she did it in the mansion so I have a nice huge mess to clean up today.
Ahh the joys of keeping a large tortoise!
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PHRatz

i guess i have much to look forward to when my hatchling grows out of his table. it sounds like i will have to invest in knee pads.

>>i guess i have much to look forward to when my hatchling grows out of his table. it sounds like i will have to invest in knee pads.

LOL yeah lots to look forward too lol.
No really, once you get your system down it's not that hard. Rubber gloves, a water hose & a scrub brush soap & disinfectant.. it's not too bad.
Clear out the solids, water it down, scrub with soap, rinse, add disinfectant let it sit, rinse then wait for it to dry. It's really not as bad as it sounds. It took me all of about 10 minutes yesterday to get it clean but drying took a while. It was warm, she stayed out grazing while it dried.
In winter when she does this & can't be out grazing... well usually we're lucky enough that she gets most or all of it on the paper. Just pull that out & throw it away, that's really easy. When she gets some on the heat pad I use a little chlorhexidine & paper towels to clean it off that heat pad. It's not too much of a big deal. She's worth it, we love her.
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PHRatz

By the way..... how cold does it get where you live? Just wondering what temps your building can handle for her since we are going to be building one in the very near future. My guys are going to grow out of their tort table very soon and won't be able to be inside.... ): I will miss them when that happens!

>>By the way..... how cold does it get where you live?

Most winters our coldest months are Dec.- Feb. In most years we run the air conditioner by day and the heat by night all the way up until a week or so before Christmas. Between Oct. & Christmas we'll have cold spells where we won't run the A/C every single day but usually after Christmas the A/C is off until sometime in the early part of March. The Bermuda grass goes dormant around the middle to the end of Nov. then it starts to green up again in March. We have fairly short winters.

Most winters we'll have some days dip into the 20s, it's rare for it to get all the way down to 0 but that has happened during some years. It's not gotten that cold since we've had the sulcata, so hopefully if it does she'll be warm enough.
When it's been in the 20s at night the heaters did keep the tortiose mansion warm enough, in the 70s.

In summer I keep the cool side bare but in winter I do put paper on the floor of the cool side because that concrete gets really cold.
Hay made too much of a mess, paper is easy to change when it's dirty.
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PHRatz

Hi and thanks. What temps do you keep in there during the winter. And what type of controller do you use to regulate the pig pad? Here are photos of the tort shed we built last year. This year we added two 4x12 tables (one for the redfoots and one for two 2 year old leopards). Our sulcata (given to us by a friend of a friend last August) has the whole floor (12x16). The background heat is provided by a baseboard heater (wood frame and attached to the floor) and basking lights. I do have a Osbourne pig pad but think I got the wrong controller. I'm still trying to get the floor warm enough without overheating the tables. And what night temp do you shoot for?

Thanks for any help,
Troya

Here you can see one of the tables....

One shows his doghouse and the tables and the basking lights. The pig pads not hooked up yet.

Very nice/ proffesional looking tortoise house.

Thanks, Rob. But shhhh...we've told the neighbors it's for storage <g>.
Troya

OMG Troya I said we have a mansion.. no YOU have a mansion WOW!
That building is awesome!!
We shoot for night time temps somewhere in the low 70s during winter, that's generally where it stays too.
When it's really cold it actually never does get any higher in day time than the low 80s.
I have a Kane heat mat, they sell reostats but actually we never bought one. We've been controlling the temps by hand. I use the thermometer in her "mansion" to determine when to turn off which heater. During summer they're just off period.

I love that building of yours. I think it's best tortoise building I've ever seen!
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PHRatz

Thanks. That's about what I hit with the night time temps too so maybe I don't need the pad. I didn't use it last winter and we had some cold nights (we are in Alabama) but I have this thought that the cold is somehow coming thru the floor and chilling him, even though we insulated it, covered it with wood and then linoleum. I also found that hay or any other substrate was more of a mess although I may put some in his house for to dig down in at night. The thermometers I'm reading are on the shed floor but I'm still paranoid. Summer is *so* much easier!! I really, really hate winter for him.

Troya