Magoo is in the house!

[magoo]

Well, it's finally started getting a little too cold and wet for magoo to stay outside. Temps around 50 degrees are not good. His doghouse was heated, but even so, you can't expect a sulcata to stay in a small 2x2 doghouse for months at a time.

He has a room pretty much to himself now - I built a large wooden enclosure which is in the corner of the room (photo below)
It is made from about 30 feet of 3x1 lumber and thin fibreboard sheets for the sides and back. The top is loose at the moment - it just keeps a bit of heat inside. Hay is generously spread around inside for him to eat and burrow in.

[magoo]

There is a room heater (behind the slotted white cover you can see in the picture), but our house heating is so erratic, it would be virtually impossible to regulate the temperature with any accuracy, so I turned it off.
His early Christmas present just arrived today (a 1x2 Stanfield heat pad), the red thing he's lying on in the photo below.
These things are great - they are made for pigs, so they are pretty substantial - he seems to love it so far - after bathing him this morning, he hasn't left it - he lies on it with his arms and legs spread wide out so the heat goes through his shell as well as possible.


You can see his day bulb is on at the moment - again, both his day bulb and moon bulb are on timers. His moon bulb can be seen in the corner of his house.

[magoo]

His room isn't finished yet - I put a heavy duty plastic taup down first, and then covered that with brown paper. His house has an extra layer of cardboard at the bottom, too.

At some point I will build him a sand/soil area for him to dig in, and also a "scratch pad" area to try to keep his nails short.
There are a couple of cardboard  boxes in the room, too - just in case he wants to cool off and go and chill in a dark corner. :-)

[magoo]

Here you can see the simple rig that i have for controlling his daylight and moon bulb. Basically, they are both on timers (about $5 each from walmart), so when one is on, the other is off. It's not quite as elegant a solution as the outside one, where there is one controller and separate sockets for day/night, but it does the job just fine.

His heatpad controller is the brown box on the left, which as far as I can tell is just a rheostat, with an analogue scale from low to high. It's on medium right now, and gives off a very pleasant warmth!

[magoo]

More photos of Magoo in his house and enjoying his new heat pad!

[magoo]

And one more!

[bc1940]

Your tortoise has a lovely shiny shell, do you have to put oil on its shell, I hope it doesnt dry out in so much heat, what do you have to do to keep it i n that condition.   Looks like you will be buying bags of straw all winter, does he eat much? saw pictures of him eating his green vegitables.  Does he need to drink water?
He is very lucky to have his heat pad and he looks as if he is enjoying it.
Could you put an old thick branch of a tree in his room.  If they are all claws on picture, do you have to cut them at all.
Lots of questions from me, but he looks extremely happy and contented in his new surroundings for the winter.
Bye for now- lots more information please. shrek

[magoo]

No, you should never put oil or any other substance on a tortoise's shell - for a start, you don't know how it will react with the shell (even though it's pretty much the same stuff that fingernails are made from, only much thicker, and would probably not be harmful, I would not chance it.)
Also, it may run off into his eyes or something.
The only thing he gets is a bath every few days and a gentle scrubbing with a soft brush and mild soap if he's grubby.
He rarely drinks water - he gets most of his moisture needs from his food. Lettuce is high in water content.

They can also control how much water they excrete to conserve it. As he is natively from Africa (very hot), this is a useful thing to have.
However, he always has water available, and his regular baths give him plenty of opportunity to drink.

We have tried to cut his nails with a dog nail trimmer, but that didn't work - we tried to use a dremel and grinding bit, which worked a little. I think we will have to keep trying that.

You don't touch his "claws", just the actual nails you can see on the very end of his front (and rear) legs. You have to be careful not to cut too short, too.
He seems very happy in the room - he just doesn't like the slippery paper surface, which is why I am going to build him a burrowing area and scratching pad as soon as I get the materials.

[bc1940]

Why not make a den out of branches and lots and lots of dry leaves.  The leaves would smell like outside inside.  You seem to have plenty of room to  make a sand base, with lots of twiggs and leaves. shrek.

[magoo]

Yes, we have the room - the trouble is that he likes to push against everything and basically try to destroy whatever you build for him.
With leaves and stuff ,they would soon be scattered all round the room and just make a mess. He's just a messy animal.
The other day he pooed and trod the stuff all over the place. Was a stinky job cleaning that up!

[bc1940]

Hi again,
Just been looking at Magoos "in the house"   Hope he has settled and has a scratch pad, by the look of his long strong arms and claws, did you ever manage to get them cut.  He needs a tree trunk to scratch on.  What happened to the "heat pad" did you try it with the baby tortoises?
 Look  forward to hearing more about the tortoises.
shrek bc1940

[magoo]

We actually use a "dremel" high speed rotary tool to grind his nails down. He doesn't much like it, but it works pretty well.
The baby torts are ok without a heat had - they are inside all the time and in our room, which stays pretty warm!