1 extra hour of sun?

[helen1]

I have 5 adult ibera males in one area of the garden...theorchardy bit!....I noticd taht the sun was leaving them at 3/4pm....so I extended it by the half length, which was 24 feet and by 4 foot extra on the width.

In my opinion it made a vast difference to them....as most tortoises in my experience graze again from 4pm onwards...the females were doing this as they get the sun from sunrise to sunset....the males however were away to the hides...

To me it is natural for them to graze at this end of the day so if extending the enclosure gives them the opportunity to be more natural...then go for it...

[Alan1]

The problem is that it leaves the enclosure at 4pm and would leave the extended bit by 5pm but of course the sun is moving down that too so the whole of that extension would not be getting the hour's extra sun. by 4.15 a quarter of it would be in shade and by 4.30 half of it would be in shade.

Will they only graze if the sun is out?

[helen1]

Mine move with the sun....at 8am they are on the east facing wall
at 10ish to 2 ish they are on the south facing WALL
from 2pm to 4 pm they jiggle around to the south facing FENCE
from 4pm onwards they utilise the west facing fence.

No they dont just graze because of the sun being out...but because there body temps are maintained from basking every last ray!

Just been out side now...of the 17 adults only 2 have already gone to bed, 10 are grazing and 5 are making there way to their individual coldframes/hides...for the night.

9 of the juveniles are still up and 8 have dug in...and the 13 babies are tucked up in various pots etc....

[Alan1]

If I could raise my garden by about 3 or 4 feet I could get an extra 4 hours of sun just now The sun hits the inside of my fence until sunset but my ground level is below that obviously

I was checking the sunrise and sunset times earlier and it's a nonsense, we watched the sun go down last night at 9.00 which is half an hour longer than the stated sunset time

[Laraine]

I would say it was worth it. After monitoring the movement of the sun last year on the enclosures, this spring we have moved the Whitei enclosure, so instead of 5 to 6 hours, they now get the sun in their enclosure from sunrise to sunset. The Leopards are the next big move to give them longer in the sun as well, from 7 hours to the same as the whitei.

[Alan1]

I've just had an idea, I could fix a mirror type reflector to my fence to direct the sunlight onto my enclosure

[Alan1]

Does anyone already do this and if so what do you use?

Baking foil over a board and held on with a frame I though of or a piece of white formica or stainless steel? A mirror that size would be quite expensive.

I think it will work. The morning sun hits the windows of houses further up from here and shines in ours and lights up the room just as if the sun was shining straight in

[Ozric Jonathan]

Yes my experience is that where I live anyway, there is very little UVB after 4pm. But, of course if its sunny then you've got warmth. This could extend the active day for the torts, if they can be in a warm place. The sun also heats the ground.

The extra space sounds fab to me, for all the usual reasons. but from a purely UVB point of view it probably wouldn't be worth it.

[Alan1]

I have tested this tonight with a mirror and it works grand

All I need now is something big enough like a driveway mirror or a big board with tin foil on

[16 shells]

Stainless steel maybe