Building a habitat for a sulcata - part 2

[magoo]

Well now that I've finished the outside barrier, I thought it'd be a good time to post some more info about his "living quarters", which basically consists of the largest doghouse we could find with some installations of bulbs for light/heat.

We have had the doghouse for several years now - I don't think it was too expensive - I vaguely remember paying about $40-50 for it at a pet store- I'm sure you could get one cheaper from e-bay maybe.

It has an easily removeable "roof", which makes any required clean-ups pretty easy, although as it stands now, with the wires going into the house and to the holders in the roof, it is not possible to completely remove the roof - but I can still "pop" one side off and hinge it up enough to get inside and clean up any poop etc.

For substrate, I find a 50/50 mix of sand and topsoil works really well - he often burrows into it to cool down and feel protected,too.

I also add a generous amount of hay (timothy etc) in there for him to munch on and make his bed.

[magoo]

Here you can see his house (on the right). The box on the left is an old storage box that houses the timer control (this allows the daylight and nightime bulbs to be turned on and off at the appropriate hours)
Obviously, the box needs to be waterproof. I used duct tape to secure the solid plastic channeling to the box.

A hole was drilled in the plastic storage box (and doghouse) to allow the insertion of this plasic channeling. The blue plastic channeling is really just because I don't want bare wires laying outside (magoo might well try to bite them, and could possible electrocute himself if he managed to nip through the casing - with the casing, there is no way for him to get to the wires inside!)

[magoo]

Both boxes are screwed to a platform that I made (with legs) and hammered into the ground. This platform is simply to provide a level surface for his doghouse (and also to keep it off the ground so there's no chance of it flooding, or being affected by ground frost when the nights get colder)
I also added the acrylic window on the side of the doghouse.

The duct taple on top of the doghouse covers the screws that I used to attach block of wood to the top. I use these blocks of wood to secure the heaters/light fixtures inside the house.

[magoo]

The "ramp" that can be seen leading up to his house has been changed since this photo - he just wasn't using it, so I added sides (I think they act like a horses' "blinkers" - he was seeing over the edge and was scared of the drop probably)

I also had to add more horizontal slats to the ramp as they were too far apart for him to get enough grip.
I also had to block off the area underneath his platform as he was worming his way under there rather than using the ramp to go into his house - he managed to scratch the top of his shell on one of the screws that I used to secure the top of the ramp to the platform - luckily it wasn't at all serious, but still - I had to keep him out!

[magoo]

Here are some more photos of how I ran the power supply from the light fitting in the "cellar room" to his box, then to his house.

This is the end of the extension cord and the light fitting that it is to be plugged into. I used "c" clamps on the blue casing to hold it in place as required to take the strain off the connection

[magoo]

Here is my neat and tidy placement of the casing around the door and it leadingup the steps to my "power distribution" box!)

[magoo]

And entering my box of tricks:

[magoo]

In this photo you can see the orange extension cord going into the box and the timer unit plugging into that.
The 3 black wires lead to bulbs and heaters within the doghouse.

The timer unit has 2 "day" outlets and 2 "night" outlets and 4 outlets that are permanently on. During the summer (as it is now), I generally just have 1 heater lamp plugged in, set to come on around 10pm and go off at 8am.

As the days get darker and shorter, I will adjust so that a daylight bulb is added for heat and light during the day, and when the nights get really cold, I will plug both heaters on and also insulate the doghouse with a space-age blanket, which does a very good job at keeping heat in.

[magoo]

In this photo (which was taken from inside the doghouse, you can see the type of heaters (or rather bulb/heater holders) I use. There's no need to buy the expensive heaters from pet shops - I got a few from Home Depot for half the price - they have ceramic sockets (very important - plastic may melt and be a fire hazard) and are rated for 250W bulbs, which is more than enough, as all my bulbs and heaters are 100Watts

There are 3 holders inside - you can't see the one to the left in this picture, but there's one angled down at approximately 45 degrees that contains the ceramic heater, in the middle one I will put his "moon bulb" as I call it - it is a special bulb coated with rare earth elements so it is very dark and casts a faint glow, but gives out mostly heat.

I have found that these burn out every few months, whereas the ceramic heater will last for years probably. I need to restock on moon bulbs - they are about $6 or $7 each from various online reptile stores - I usually get the 100W versions, but will be ordering a few 250W ones for the colder weather that is coming up.

In the right hand holder I put his daylight bulb. I bought a "mega ray" flood type lamp over a  year ago now, and I'm pretty sure that by now most of the therapeutic UVA and UVB rays are minimal - although it still does give out a lot of heat.
I don't have it on in the daytime now as it was getting too hot in his house - close to 100degrees F
Plus, he has plenty of room to run about in natural sunlight now, which is far superior anyway.

You can also see the wooden blocks that I used to screw "eye" bolts to in order to hang the bulb holders. I also wire-tied the wires to the eye-bolt as a double safety measure (I really don't want the things falling off onto Magoo!)

[magoo]

I cleaned out his doghouse (and dried it), before adding a 50/50 mix of top soil and sand. Play sand is far superior (it is very fine and dry), but Home Depot didn't have any, so I had to use general purpose stuff instead (see the photo below). This is not ideal, but I don't think Magoo minded too much.

This substrate is great for Magoo to dig into - it is good to help him cool down when hot and at night, he feels safer if he buries his head into the stuff. It's about 4 or 5 inches deep, but when Magoo grubbles around in it, it really does go all over the place.

I also keep a good amount of Timothy hay on top of the soil/sand mix and check every day and change as necessary - he often poops and wees in his house - if the hay is damp or there's poo in there, I get it out as best I can and change the tainted hay.

[magoo]

Some more photos of the house and the tools I used (I did clear the mess up... eventually!)

[magoo]

And here are the bulbs I use. There's a daylight bulb for heat and light during the day (when necessary), a ceramic heater for reliable and consistent heat output (mainly during the night, but I leave it on permanently when the days get colder)
and a moon bulb.

It should be pretty obvious which ones are which.

[bc1940]

Hi magoo - It looks like you have a full time job switching heaters and light on for toitoise.  Have you an automatic switch like we have to start and stop lights  it also has a clock timer.  Hope toitoise is enjoying the weather.
bc1940

[magoo]

It is all controlled by the timer control unit you can see in the 6th photo down. The outlets marked in yellow are the "daytime" ones and are active during the hours of the day specified by switching the little "pegs" into place on the outside of the timer dial.
The blue outlets come on at night and the plain ones are permanently live.

If I was going to get another one, I'd probably opt for a digital one as they are a lot more flexible, but pricey.

The biggest gripe I have with this unit is that there's no way to specify a "lull" between day and night. For example, if I have the daytime bulb set in a daylight outlet and a moon bulb in a nighttime outlet, then as soon as the daylight bulb goes off, the moon bulb comes on.

What I'd like to have is (say) the daylight bulb go off at 6pm, then nothing at all on for 3 of 4 hours (or whatever), then the moon bulb to come on at 9 or 10pm for example.

Unfortunately, with this controller that's not possible - the periods are controlled by moving little pegs either in or out.

However, I suppose I've managed so far with it, so don't need the expense of buying an all singing all dancing unit for a little extra flexibility!