ULTIMATE TORTOISE GARDEN (Our Backyard Sanctuary)

[Music] thank you [Music] keeping tortoises properly outside is like making one big Garden but there's a lot of things that go into play that don't have to be that hard in fact sometimes you can let nature do a lot of the work for you you just have to put those basic needs in place right off the bat so come along with me we're going to go around into all our different outdoor tortoise pens and I'm going to give you the tips and details on how to give your tortoise the best life possible in The Great Outdoors [Music] foreign [Music] see these tortoises lined up against the wall right here well this is an indicator that this pen has been placed in the right area pen placement is the first thing you need to think about before you even build anything and that's because tortoises primarily mean to be in the Sun so you're going to want to choose a sunlit location that's also well drained and these tortoises right here are proving that this is in the right spot they're finding the south facing wall where the sun is hitting bright and early in the morning and they're using it to warm up so not only does the placement of this pen play a major role but the sun is warming up this wood and the tortoises are finding that warmth to get to that optimal body temperature so they can resume normal activity [Music] take a look behind me these pens are being blasted with sunlight first thing in the morning and through pretty much the majority of the day now whether you're dealing with European tortoise species the vast majority of African tortoise species and even some of the South American ones and of course the desert toward a species you need sun these animals need to be able to thermoregulate which means the sun has to hit these areas they need to come out absorb that and then they'll start breeding eating nesting and just while being tortoises but you can't do that without the Sun the whole point of being out here is so that you don't have to use any light you don't want to drive up your electric bill anymore than you already have so you want to use that sunlight to make your tortoises warm and that is the first key to making sure you're doing it right outside pick an area an Upland area that's getting full sun and again that is well drained because none of these tortoises can sit on wet ground for prolonged periods so when you get a heavy rain you want to know that it's draining [Music] Dev here is a Greek tortoise and like many species of tortoise she is capable of digging now she's not going to dig a burrow as deep as a sulcata tortoise a gopher tortoise or a Russian tortoise for example but she absolutely can go deep and after all that's how she spends the winter she goes down about a foot into the ground it spends the winter there where she can hibernate or brewmate so that's why what you make the pen out of and how far you put it in the ground is important but I have to say tortoises aren't going to always try to dig out of their pens if you can do everything correctly and make them feel as stress-free as possible by doing little things like making sure it's placed in the right area as far as sun and drainage goes and then equipping the pen with the proper Decor you're not going to have a tortoise that becomes restless and wants to get out all the time now a tortoise like Dev is a female so during nesting season which is literally any day now she will naturally start pacing the pen looking for an area to nest and it may look like she's unhappy but all she's doing is basically going into labor and needing to find a place where she can safely deposit her eggs again if you do the pen right she will find it or any tortoise will find it on their own effort and you won't need to intervene any further we make our pens out of pressure treated planks no there is no danger to the tortoises by using pressure treated wood of course and we only have to put it into the ground about four to six inches and in nearly 30 years we've never had a tortoise dig out of a pen if the pens are large they're well planted there's plenty of visual barriers and they are in the Sun [Music] substrate you've gotta have the right substrate you don't just go making a tortoise Garden or pen right on a lawn because that is not going to be what you want why well because of all the moisture and Dew that forms within that lawn that's not real the lawn is fake so the tortoise is going to constantly be subjected to that moisture in there which isn't good over time here in South Jersey we are very fortunate being on the coast that we have a nice naturally Sandy substrate look at this stuff I didn't put this here this is great and below the surface there's plenty of moisture for burrowing and digging now if you live in an area that you don't have natural substrate that you can use that's beneficial for the tortoises then you have to make your own typical topsoil Sandy loamy mixes are what you usually want to go for with just about any variety of tortoise with the exception of some of the South American ones but even still if there are other elements to the pen you could still use a substrate just like this sand is one of the most natural components in any tortoises habitat across the globe and I'm a big advocate for using it properly maybe I'm one of the only ones out there but again this is going over many decades of experience this is the kind of substrate that you'll have the ultimate success outdoors with tortoises so let's move on to another tip foreign talk about perfect timing this Eastern Herman's tortoise right here is proving my point about substrate this is the natural Earth and look at what she's digging up it is the perfect consistency temperature and it has the appropriate amount of humidity for her to want to lay her eggs right here this is what she's doing right in front of you guys right now she's in a trance so she doesn't really realize that I'm even here but you can see there if you look closely you can see there's already some eggs out of her and that's why I'm able to be so close to her when they start nesting right away it's easy to spook them because they're not completely committed yet but this tortoise is committed to getting those eggs in the ground and when she's finished we'll remove them for artificial incubation but you see you've got a nice hot rock right here and a sloped area with the right substrate the tortoise can't ask for anything else this is perfect she's literally continuing her species existence right here because this pen was set up the right way [Music] rock rocks are extremely important they heat up fast they are also found in just about every single tortoise habitat across the planet and the tortoises use them these are Libyan Greek tortoises nearly a true desert species of tortoise and they are utilizing these rocks here in South Jersey to warm up and let me tell you they are hot to touch this one's been up here foraging and this one right here is angling herself against The Rock similar to what those Herman's tortoises were doing with the wood to get that precious warmth this enables the animals to thermoregulate and stay healthy these are just Pennsylvania fieldstones and also some flagstone and you can get creative with it you can make nooks and crannies and shelves just make sure that they're anchored in right aren't going to fall on the tortoises and this is you know similar to what you would see in Libya you've got that Sandy substrate already the low-lying Shrubbery and The Rock and these tortoises are perfectly at home they never try to escape they only become Restless when they're gravid which is natural [Music] along with rock work you can add things like Driftwood and Fallen logs this is stuff that's naturally found in any tortoise habitat and they use it they'll try to go underneath it or like this leopard tortoise is doing right here he's basking right up against it and it looks awesome especially when the wood gets really bleached out like this for the sun you can find all kinds of awesome pieces in the woods around your property or home they create visual barriers so if you've got a group of tortoises which is perfectly fine to do if the pen is big enough they can get away from each other or stay hidden from each other by having multiple visual barriers that helps de-stress them thank you create uneven terrain for your tortoises tortoises don't just occur on flat ground in nature they have to move around even climb over things they occur on Rocky hillsides scrub land all different types of areas where they're not just walking at one level and if you keep them on one level on flat ground they're going to get atrophied they're going to get bored and they're not going to have enough enrichment in their life so what you could do if you have a naturally sloped area you could fence that in or you could create one for them by piling up substrate and then planting the appropriate plant life within that area you can see right here in the radiated tortoise pen they've got a nice Upland area where they've even got a tree growing in it and as well as many other shrubs that we planted here where they can utilize those so no matter how hard the Sun beats down on this they still have areas to hide which is important and they have to work they have to move up and down and one other thing that this does is even though the slope itself is well drained it creates pools at the bottom of it and I actually prefer to do that for tortoises when it comes to water content than constantly having dirty water bowls everywhere because tortoises you know go in there they soil things up in just a matter of minutes so sometimes it doesn't matter how often you change a water dish they're going to destroy it within seconds on you so by doing this you're really making a naturalistic situation for them and when it rains heavy they can go down into there they can soak they can create a mud wallow and they can drink but it's a good idea to have water dishes around throughout the pen of course because when there's droughts you're going to need to provide them with water additionally however if you are not overly handling your tortoises and stressing them out constantly then you don't need to worry that much about water when it comes to adults why is that because when you stress out a tortoise and you pick it up it's going to avoid its reserves remember tortoises don't need to drink that much in nature because they reserve it inside their bodies when you pick up a wild tortoise one of the first things it's going to do is pee all over you and well you could potentially be costing a tortoise it's life if it lives in a very arid area because in some of those places they don't know when rain is coming again we should try to aim to treat our tortoises the same way in captivity of course there are plenty of times that we have to handle them them moving them around doing Health assessments digging up eggs that kind of stuff but right here there's no reason for me to touch this radiated tortoise as he sleeps and by not doing that well it'll retain that water [Music] speaking of water for some species it's more important than others like red foot tortoises red-footed tortoises are a South American species so they come from areas where they do get plenty of Sun and they do occur in grasslands but they also like forests and they really appreciate water in fact they need it more than something like a radiated tortoise or a Herman's tortoise is going to need as an adult and as you can see here we make sure our red foot tortoises get water we have three different shallow ponds in here and the water fills up when it rains really heavy stays like that for a while and then dissipates and the tortoises also appreciate the cool mud this is a very natural setting for them where they can stay cool at any given time and also stay very well hydrated just take a look in here do you even see a tortoise well that's also a good sign that means the tortoises are utilizing this habitat to the maximum and we gotta actually work to find them don't let that Panic you though you should have to try to find your tortoises it means that they're living in naturalistic life so come on let's find one foreign there's a beautiful adult male Redford tortoise right there who's been walking around all morning and actually I think if you look in one of those ponds over there you can see his foot tracks through the mud and he probably got himself a drink he probably ate a little bit of the natural vegetation in here and now he is Basking right up against this grass where he can reach optimal body temperature while staying hidden and that is why vegetation is very important including natural weed growth this is what I mean right here when you do things right and you really let things grow in the way that they should be as in nature would intend it's kind of hard to find the tortoises but if you look and you know what you're looking for you're going to find them this big male Red Foot Tortoise was every bit this big is right here cooling off in the mud because it's getting hot is that perfectly at home right there super warm but not overheated no reason to disturb them [Music] [Music] natural plant and weed growth is beneficial because many times it's edible and allows the tortoises to constantly have access to food remember they're grazers so in the wild they wake up they warm up a little bit and then they carry on with their day and really a lot of that is walking around and grazing they take a little bit here they take a little bit there and then they come back around and they do it again so allowing that natural growth helps keep the plants you purposely put in here at Bay and allows them to have more of a natural diet and it also offers them cover it's a way that these animals naturally hide from predators in the wild and they can also do that in your pens along with other Predator deterrents this is one of our Galapagos tortoises this is Jack right here and he or she has been hanging out in the weed growth all day but the tortoise is extremely warm because it is partially exposing itself through that plant growth all day that patchy sunlight that comes down through what's a little bit of a mini canopy allows the tortoise to stay warm as it continues to walk around with out overheating this is a black tortoise and Galapagos tortoises are primarily black throughout life so this animal can overheat quickly even though they do come from those volcanic areas in their native Galapagos Islands now why am I handling this tortoise well that's because sometimes it's necessary and I haven't picked up Jack in a little while and I want to do a health assessment on him or her just to make sure that everything checks out all right and you can see the tortoise has Clear Eyes clear Nares wonderful weight no injuries and now I can put this tortoise down and let it go about its day weed growth is wonderful and again it helps them with that thermoregulation but not as much as the last thing I want to show you come on [Music] hey Dixie hey girl last but not least by any means are cold frames or greenhouses and these really really come in handy especially in areas like New Jersey where weather can be iffy at times of the year because this really allows the tortoises to thermoregulate Dixie I'm sure you recognize is an African spur thigh tortoise also known as the sulcata tortoise and she's the third largest tortoise species in the world so not only does she need a lot of room but she also needs something large that can help her to thermoregulate it's May right now it's already about 80 degrees but earlier this morning it was only in the low 50s that's pretty chilly for an African tortoise for the most part they do experience some cold but having this as soon as the Sun hits these polycarbonate panels it starts warming her up she gets nice and revved up and now she can come out into her enclosure one of the things we do for species of tortoise that come from areas like Africa that are large like Dixie and also our leopard tortoises for example and even our aldabra tortoise or radiated tortoises we let the pens really grow in nice and heavily first before we let them out for the season it's like a cycling okay we let that growth really come in because the tortoises are going to naturally graze on it and really start to mow it down so it's similar to what people do for livestock they'll move their hook stock around so that they can let growth come in certain areas before they let them back in that's essentially what we do right here at Garden State tortoise for these larger species of tortoise that do have to come indoors for the winter so you can get these off Amazon this is eight by two foot Cold Frame made by Gardner Supply it's Cedar based which yes is of course safe for the tortoises it's Cedar bedding you never want to use but the wood is okay foreign [Music] so the use of these cold frames and greenhouses in combination with all the other points that I brought up helps everything to come full circle so you can really create the ultimate outdoor tortoise Garden what should make the pen out of where you place the pen the substrate The Rock work the plant life the greenhouses every little bit counts and helps tortoises feel safe and secure of course you do have to Predator protect your animals by means of electric fence Lids if they're really small ones and other measures but a tortoise like Dixie pretty much going to be very safe however the fence around her needs to go in much deeper than it would for something like a hermit's tortoise because this species naturally digs very deep Burrows no matter what mood they're in it's what they're programmed to do so if you guys enjoyed this video and it helps you know where to put your outdoor tortoise pen and how to construct it and how to decorate it don't forget that plant life is just as if not more important than many of the things that I brought up in this video and you should 100 percent check out this video next so you know safe and unsafe plant choices [Music]

Channel: Garden State Tortoise

Views: 62,216

Keywords: Tortoise garden, How to keep tortoises outside, outdoor tortoise keeping, should tortoises be outside?, tortoise care tips, best pet tortoise care info, pet tortoise care tips, how to raise baby tortoises, raising baby tortoises, baby tort, baby tortoises, New Jersey tortoise zoo, Private reptile zoo, ultimate reptile zoo, ultimate tortoise garden, raise garden bed for tortoise, garden tortoise habitat, Backyard tortoise habitat, backyard tortoise keeping

Id: bGfB-NHJh6E

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023