Custom Tortoise Enclosure with Two Tortoise Houses — Madison, WI
A Madison homeowner wanted a safe outdoor home for their tortoises: two separate pens, a shelter in each, built to last for years and good-looking enough to sit right beside the house.
We staked out a 16 x 12 ft footprint split into two 8 x 12 ft pens with a shared center wall, then graded and leveled the ground. Six 4x4 posts went into 4 ft deep holes set in concrete, at the inside corners and at each end of the divider.
The walls are seven courses of 4x4 pressure-treated lumber stacked log-cabin style, interlocked at every corner and screwed down course by course so no screw heads show, for a wall about two feet tall. A 2x10 cap runs around the whole top with mitered corners. Where the divider meets the front and back walls, the cap comes together in a three-way miter, and the cap doubles as a seat-height ledge.
Each pen has its own tortoise house, 36 x 30 x 24 in and raised 4 in off the ground on legs. The front door drops down like a drawbridge and latches shut at night. The roof is hinged at the back and held open by gas struts, so cleaning is hands-free. A screened vent with a shutter on the side lets air in on hot days and closes up when it turns cool. Inside, each house has a water barrier and treated paneling.
Outside the enclosure we added a stone-edged mulch bed along one side, then topsoiled and seeded the disturbed lawn.
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