Ok heres a build up of a 3 by 3 ft tortoise box that me and my roommate made for our sulcata tortoise. First we took our old bookself and flipped it on its back, that made for a 3 by 3 ft enclosure. We then went to lowes and got three 1 in by 2 in by 6 ft lengths of maple wood and cut them into equal 3 ft lenghts. We contructed a frame from these pieces that are gonna be for the top of the enclosure...to keep the cats out and to provide us a place to put lights. To make things easier on ourselves we laid the pieces on top of each other at the corners which also gives us a raised area to maybe put a clip on light later on. While we screwed in the corners we laid out a 3 by 3 ft section of plastic mess that had 1 by 1 in squares cut in it. We opted for this material because the mess thats for screen doors is too fine and wouldnt allow as much light to get through to the tortoise. We used the screwing together of the frame to secure the mess in place...though we are probably gonna staple it to the wood at some point. We then put crossmembers in to make the frame more sturdy and to have a place to put a light. We then added 4 small hinges on the bottom piece of frame and screwed the other side into the wood of the box itself. Inside the box we took boxes of equall height and placed one of the old shelves along it for a high spot for the tortoise to climb up to. We are also gonna put a heat lamp up there to create a basking spot...ill probably get that tomorrow. And were gonna make the ramps out of strudy cardboard with a raised area on one side to be used as a railing so the tortoise doesnt accidentally fall off and get stuck on its back and die. The area under the rasied area can be used as a sleeping/borrowing area for the tortoise even though we placed the old sleeping/borrowing area into the new enclosure. On one side of the enclosure we put a heating pad. So weve got a hot spot and a colder spot. Thats it so far.
