Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Goodmorning to all of you! I was wondering if those of you who have cinderblock fences around your yards have any problems with the turtles digging out of the yard?

We have a cinderblock fence and at one area we had some pipes kind of stacked by it and some of the turtles liked to dig a cubby under the pipes against the fence and stay during the hot part of the day. Others chose spots by shrubs and vines where it seemed to be cooler, or they would go under the little cubbies that I had made for them.

We are fixing a new enclosure for them out in the yard so I will have a place to put them when I am mowing the lawn so I won't have to wonder where they are at the moment. We are using the fence as one wall of the enclosure and landscaping logs as the other walls. I don't mind if they dig out under the logs since they will still be in the yard, though I will put some cement down or some bricks along the border to try and discourage them from digging out. Anyway.......so what do you all think? Will they dig under the cinderblock fence? Do I need to put some sort of barrier down into the ground along the fence?

Any thoughts will be appreciated. Thanks in advance......take care! ......9 boxies

I would play it safe and put something there to keep them from being able to dig out. Bricks and hardware cloth are good to use. Good luck.

Our cinderblock fence is less than a year old but I watched the builders build it. They built a concrete base underground that was fairly deep then built the fence on top of the base. So far no turtle has tried to dig under it, the tortoise hasn't either.

Before with the old fence we had rebar hammered into the ground, rebar does work to keep them from digging out. You could do that if you need to.
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PHRatz