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Old 17-06-2013, 11:02 PM   #21
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Well my tortoises will turn sideways up a brick wall to warm first thing in the mornings, but they never bask on my slabs. Just the soil.
Broken plant pots are great for tortoises to hide in:0)
Can you not do half soil and half slate. The problem with thin slate is it gets very very hot. You need the thick slate for tortoises to bask on. It needs to be an inch or two thick, to be able to disperse the heat, rather than scorching hot:0)
Thanks. I will get some half pots for hides. Is the soil u have loose or compacted? My worry is last year the bigger run was half and half and they just dug down there too.
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Old 18-06-2013, 02:12 PM   #22
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put thermometer in outdoor house last night.... probe in air recorded 15.6C probe in soil similar.

Doesn't seem too cold for them
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Old 18-06-2013, 06:11 PM   #23
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The soil I use is mixed with sand and gravel like the natural habitat and they seem to love it.

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Old 18-06-2013, 07:54 PM   #24
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Do you find they bury much? Also how deep is the soil?
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Old 18-06-2013, 11:17 PM   #25
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I literally dug about 6" down and turned the soil over pulled alot of the grass, spread 1" of topsoil then added sand and its great I only put the 1" of topsoil in so it looked nice because the other soil was dry ha !
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Old 19-06-2013, 07:33 AM   #26
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Thats pretty much what mine was like last year and I lost both of then about 6" down. Took me two days of digging by fingers to find them. Hence the slate this year.

So back to the original question those of you with soil in enclosures are yours digging down?
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Old 19-06-2013, 08:28 AM   #27
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Thats pretty much what mine was like last year and I lost both of then about 6" down. Took me two days of digging by fingers to find them. Hence the slate this year.

So back to the original question those of you with soil in enclosures are yours digging down?
You do need to have lots of plants in the enclosure, as just a wide open space will scare tortoises. They dont know there are no predetors out there. So they need cover to make the move out into the wide world. Once they get used to the enclosure, they will move around freely.
They will dig down if its too hot, or too cold.

What time of the year did they dig down that deep?
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Old 19-06-2013, 09:28 AM   #28
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A couple of mine do dig down very deep, i have deep soil areas they dig down into, even tyler who is just 9cm will usually dig down in a tunnel he made in the outside enclosure under the campanula & hebe so i know if he isnt dug down in the shed he will be in the tunnel and i know where to look for him x
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Old 19-06-2013, 11:36 AM   #29
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Hello I am a returning member (haven't contributed since 2008!) and I can really empathise with everyone here struggling to do the right thing for their torts in this awful weather we're having!

I have come to the conclusion that the only answer to keeping torts in a garden in the summer is to have a heated shed where they can warm up, then roam around and munch away. When it rains and the temperature drops, they go back in and warm up again. It's sad because like everyone else I want my torts to live as naturally as possible. But I have had to do this if they are to live -a bit like- they would in their natural environment.

I have put two ceramic heat lamps (dangling from the ceiling) in a shed as well as a large wooden box full of straw in the corner. The shed has a small tort-sized opening at ground level with a little swing door - a bit like a cat flap. This seems to work well for them.
But what else can we do in this climate?
England is a long way from Greece or where ever hermanns come from.

It's good to be back and reading all your interesting and very helpful posts.

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Old 19-06-2013, 12:49 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sandy View Post
You do need to have lots of plants in the enclosure, as just a wide open space will scare tortoises. They dont know there are no predetors out there. So they need cover to make the move out into the wide world. Once they get used to the enclosure, they will move around freely.
They will dig down if its too hot, or too cold.

What time of the year did they dig down that deep?
Excellent thanks. Do you have pics of your enclosure you can point me towards?

It was July last year.
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