New tortoise table

[Crwban]

I'm so excited, the MDF has arrived and hopefully my Dad will be free sometime this week to build me a 6' x 2' tortoise table for Lolly instead of the viv she's currently in.

Now, I have a shopping list of stuff I need. I already have:

2 x fences to break up the view (well, actually they're rolled up placemats, but I'll see how they do until I can get something more solid)
1 x small rock
1 x large water bowl
1 x small bag of pebbles

I'm going to be buying/getting:
1 x large piece of slate (from the pile at my boyfriend's house which will be split up to make 2 or 3 pieces)
More pebbles
A wooden log of some sort
Proper solid house (although she likes to fight her cardboard box one and then sleep in it)

The UV light and heat bulb will be transferred from the viv.

Dad said he'll try and put casters on the legs so I can take it outside when it's sunny. I don't have a garden, just a patio so I'll need ideas as well for outdoor enclosures for patios.

I have no artistic ability, and yet I seem to have been taken over by the spirit of some designer or other and am obsessed with getting the perfect tortoise table.

Can anyone else think of something I've missed, or can suggest non-toxic yet not too tasty plants I can put in there? Don't say pansies - she'd have it down to the roots in minutes!!!

Crwban

[Naturalee]

We'll be needing pics for maximum jealousy! Lol. Sounds like its gonna be great!

[Anita Sayles]

Sounds great, be sure to update when the table is finished

[Crwban]

I will, presumably that would be a photobucket job (or something similar).

I just hope we'll get some nice weather so my Dad can have enough space to build it. If not, then I'll have to move the table out of the way in the kitchen so it can be built there.

Now, I'm off to the thread with all the pictures on enclosures so I can steal . . er cough borrow more ideas.

Crwban

[Crwban]

And she settled in pretty quickly.

From the hot end


And from the cooler end


It was finished on Wed morning and she seemed in shock to start with and wouldn't come out of her shell (literally!!), but started eating on Friday evening and yesterday she was busy plotting her escape.

Any ideas on improvements?


Crwban

[emma_mcraf]

A couple of plants, if you want to add them, would look good. I have my water bowl up against the end so it's not so likely to be traipsed through and hence turn into a bog quite so often
Looking good though

[Crwban]

Thanks Emma.

I just need to find plants which are foul tasting but completely harmless. Would she try to eat plastic ones?

I toyed with putting her bowl at the cool end, but if she has to walk through it I hope that means that she'll stop and have a drink at some point.


Crwban

[Miller07]

Nice table I have their water in the corner of the cool end with astroturf and pebbles around it and it still looks like a bog at the end of the day I have plastic plants in mine, I tried real ones but they just munched it straight away :/ They have tried to bite at them when I first put them in but don't bother when they realise they are not edible x

[lynnedit]

Look really good. I have a couple of plastic plants that hand down, up on the edge of the enclosure, and they like to hide behind them. Or a couple of house plants in a stury pot in the corners. Maybe mount up a bit more substrate inside and around the pot so he can burrow?
Nice size!