one does not simply build an outdoor tortoise enclosure oh no there is a
lot of planning planting digging and just good old frolicking about in the mud to get
a beautiful outdoor enclosure ready for your tortoises so join the safari and let's see
how we transformed our new back garden into an outdoor enclosure for our horsfields tortoises!
so first we had to evaluate where we were going to put the enclosure in our garden we figured in this
corner would be best and well that meant having to get rid of this trellis with all the growth
on it which proved to probably be the most tricky aspect of it all it was really important that we
gave the tortoises the best place for sun with the most space possible while still having a garden
for ourselves so we decided to get rid of it and well it was worth it in the end check it out it
certainly opened up the garden a lot more the next step was then to see what space we had to play
with and how we wanted to divide it out and well begin the digging process as the russian tortoise
loves to dig so we wanted to make sure we gave them plenty of opportunities to be able to display
this natural behavior and that meant we too had to do a lot of digging to put down underwire to
make sure they were safe in fact we even had some help doing some digging thanks peter and tamatoa
while putting underwire down as a preventative measure is great and
definitely recommended we also make sure our tortoises are microchipped just in case!
on top of putting underwire at the bottom of the enclosure
we also wanted to do a bit of landscaping with the plants as well
so we cleared the ones you see here this led to the enclosure looking like this
we used brick to fill in the gaps that you saw the boys helping us dig up and a lot of extra topsoil
we then decided to divide the enclosure into three parts again we wanted to take in to factor
the sunlight where the sun would hit the enclosure the size of the tortoises as we have one bigger
tortoise named pepper give her a bit more space and so we played around with where the bricks
would go to divide the enclosure before finally settling on the design you will see later on
we first thought maybe try this out but then after careful consideration at looking at the sun
and realizing just how much space each tortoise would have we came up with something better
that would allow us to make the enclosure even bigger if we wanted to say let pepper walk around
on her own for a bit... so here it is with the bit of landscaping as well as we love to recycle
and love a garden center we recycled a old plant pot which you can see here with texas
burying it halfway underground and putting some soil on top so in case he needed some
shade to chill out in there he goes we were very selective with what plants we put in
the tortoise's enclosures we wanted to be both practical and aesthetically pleasing
so we went for the sedum and the blue fescue which you can see here with texas
speaking of plants you can probably see a Mediterranean theme as we have a
olive plant as well as lavender over here in utah's enclosure again we use the recycled
plant pot on the right hand side to allow him to have some shade should he wish but also a rock as
well because they are surprisingly good climbers! As well that's where they're found in the wild
they are found throughout central asia in both dry hillside slopes and so need to be able to climb
as well as even places like the desert so thus they need to be able to dig which is
why we spent so much time digging up the enclosure for them to then be able to dig
we wanted to make sure this enclosure was versatile hence the tile slabs at the back
those can be removed to be able to give a tortoise access to another enclosure we also wanted our
outdoor tortoise enclosure to be practical hence the variety of edible plants like the
sedums planted alongside the enclosures for ease of feeding them so when i'm out in the garden with
them i can just go grab a bit of sedum and pop it in the enclosure oh look here's pepper
you can see there's also plenty of dandelions around pepper and that's because well it's her
favorite food looks like she's taking a snooze after having quite a few of them earlier today
oh look utah's showing off his climbing skills it's so much fun being able to spend
time outdoors with both the tortoises and the cats catching some vitamin d oh look at him go
so what do you think of the tortoise enclosure pretty epic right ?
i think they are definitely enjoying their time outside burrowing exploring and climbing around
if you enjoyed this video why not leave a thumbs up and then head on over to my video here to see
what the teenage mutant ninja turtles would eat in real life
to celebrate world turtle day thanks for watching and i'll see you in the next video