My Turtle's New 4' X 3' enclosure!

[ThePearlFish]

So! I know it has been a LONG time coming, but I am finally done with my turtle enclosure!!!

I have an Eastern box Turtle named Greta that I rescued the day before my B-day about 1 1/2 years ago.

This is her story about her journey from living in a studio apartment to a comfortable sprawling house with acreage!


The Homemade Temporary Rubbermaid Bin Enclosure (a.k.a. the studio apt.)




(This is what I did to get to the final product)

->Started out with several pieces of foam poster board duct taped together:



->Wrapped black trashbags around for some water/spillproofing:



->Layed out slate tiles as flooring:



->And then took the black pan filled it with peat moss and decorated the enclosure with other accessories (big corner rock h2o bowl, food dish, a garden stepping stone, 2 garden pots, a fake grassy plant from the petstore, and a large piece of wood draped in fake vines that came with the enclosure)


AND HERE here is the final product!! (a.k.a sprawling country home )







Here is Greta eating in the enclosure when she first was put in. At first she was a little freaked out, but then she saw her food and all her fear disappeared and she started chowing down, the little piggy. :rolleyes:





Here is a Pic of my reptile corner in my house (My Bearded Dragon's and Greta's new enclosure, the stand for my Bearded Dragon's tank is new too! His got upgraded from a makeshift stand out of closet organizing cubes that you can put together. He is also inheriting Greta's old rock water bowl that is shown in the pic of the Rubbermaid Bin setup above):



I must say, that I AM pretty proud of what I put together here .

[weluvbettas]

Thats really cool!!! Dont you mean tortoise not turtle?

[ThePearlFish]

Thanks weluvbettas :)

She is a "Turtle," but I guess according to where you live could be called a tortoise :P

I am not good at explaining so here is what I found regarding Tortoise Vs. Turtles.

(it came from a turtle forum, a poster was explaining this.)

RE: Tortoise VS Turtle
Scientifically speaking, a true tortoise is a member of the Family Testudinidae- a branch of the Order Testudines, or turtles, so all tortoises are indeed turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises. To avoid the confusion of 'turtle', we often use 'chelonian' to refer to all shelled reptiles

The true tortoises are primarily identified by elephantine legs- no exposed toes or flippers on any limb (like the very nice visuals presented earlier). Other physical characteristics include the thick, domed carapace (except the Pancake Tortoise), and a whole slew of things in the skeleton and skull.

Behaviorally, tortoises do not hide, hunt, eat, or mate in the water although some species can swim nicely. Of course, there are land-loving turtles that that fit some or all of the behavioral issues.

What makes things confusing is the common usage of the term changes based on where you are.

USA- uses it pretty much for true tortoises
Europe- uses it for many land-dwelling chelonians, including Box Turtles
Australia- uses it for land chelonians as well as for some native fresh-water turtles

It gets really interesting when you add the term 'terrapin' to the mix, especially since terrapin is not technically a scientific term

[Jupiter]

WOW! You did a great job! Greta's new home looks awesome! I get a little jealous looking at everyone's reptiles though, lol. Greta's really cute.

I love 'homemade' homes like that. My dad used to have canaries and he made a 'room' for them to fly around in because he didn't want to put them in a cage, it just reminded me of that.

[ThePearlFish]

The enclosure is custom made, but I purchased it from someone off CL. It is originally a 4' TALL x 3' LONG x 18'' DEEP enclosure, for some type of arboreal reptile. I placed it on it's back essentially. the solid wood wall is the base and the open wall on the side of the food dish is the top. that's the reason why I put the foam board wrapped in trash bags on the bottom along with the slate. Because the back was just mesh wire. The stand is originally a pine colored coffee table from Ikea that I stained it to match close to the color of the stain on the enclosure.

Overall I spent I believe approximately $300.00 or a tad bit more on the turtle project. o.O

WOW! You did a great job! Greta's new home looks awesome! I get a little jealous looking at everyone's reptiles though, lol. Greta's really cute.

I soaked Greta and slathered shell conditioner all over her before putting her in, cus I knew I'd be taking pics of her LOL ;)

[weluvbettas]

Oh yeah were i am there called tortoises and turtles swim in water lol. I had a medaterian mediterranean tortoise called Izzy . She once got out her enclousre and jumped off her babinet and landed on her back.

[LikeDiscoSuperfly]

Wow, spoiled turtle! That is a really nice set up!

[VioletTrauma]

nice setup! and cute turtle

[ThePearlFish]

Thanks :)

She is a chowhound, if food is present, nothing else matters. She even sleeps in her food bowl sometimes LOL! Here is a kinda blurry pic of her, but you can see her food dangling from her mouth. Kinda like a kid eating spaghetti all messy LOL! She's like, "Oh come on! Do you HAVE to take pictures while I am eating? I can't concentrate!" :P

[LikeDiscoSuperfly]

LOL! She reminds me of Spike in The Land Before Time in that new pic. =D