Any ideas for an inexpensive indoor box turtle set up?

Answer 1

Buy a 50 gallon rubbermaid from Home Depot or Lowes for $15.
Use 50/50 soil and peat substrate (keep in moisture). Put in a paint tray as a water dish and some rocks to decorate it. Also, plant some plants for shade or use plastic ones. They need to be humid or else they will get ear abseces and eye/nose problems.
Keep a heat lamp with a 75 watt bulb in one side of the tank at about 10" to achieve 85 F or so, and the other side, cool side should be in the 70s F. If you can afford a UV lamp, great, if not, bringit outside once a week for 30 minutes is better than artificial UV light for a week. If you can build an outdoor pen, that would be the best and bring it in for the winter.

If you need more help, feel free to email me.

Here is ate two caresheets:
http://www.austinsturtlepage.com/Care/cs-easternboxie.htm
http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/Terrapenecare.htm

Answer 2

Boxies get about 6" long, and the rule of thumb is 100 square inches per inch of shell, so a 600 square inch space- 15x40 or so.

There are a lot of things you can use to accomplish this- kiddie pool, old converted dresser, home-made box (you can make a pretty cool enclosure from 15" wide laminated shelving boards), or a simple frame with plastic sheeting nailed to it for the floor and walls.

The cheapest, decent cage liner would be something like washable indoor/outdoor carpet scraps (one for the cage, one getting washed/disinfected), scrap linoleum sheeting, damaged stone flooring tiles, or a soil mixture using clean/sterile bagged soils.

A couple rubber cage heating pads, a decent basking heat lamp, a sunlight bulb, a sunken water bowl/mini-pond, and a couple potted edible plants for humidity and shade would round it off.

Answer 3

an old aqaurium with a mix of cyprus mulch and potting soil. A heat lamp. Decent sized water bowl so it can get in it. I have also seen old bath tubs used. Plywood enclosures. Horse troughs or large rubbermaids. I like large Rubber Maid enclosures myself like a 30 or 40 gallon they have plenty of room and are easy to clean. Lay a board across the top and drywall screw to the edge on each side to hold your heat lamp.

Answer 4

Please, please, please out it back the place you got here upon it. With the quantity of those that are on right here daily asserting they got here upon a wild container turtle and decide to maintain it, they are going to be endangered and then very rapidly. i think it truly is unlawful in all states to eliminate a wild animal from the wild and save it as a puppy with out some variety of permit. additionally, it truly is tough to make an low-value habitat for any variety of turtle/tortoise, with the aid of fact they choose very particular care. in case you like a puppy turtle, please permit this one flow and flow purchase a captive bred one; wild grownup turtles often do no longer take nicely to captivity and the strain on the animal on my own can kill it.

Answer 5

www.austinsturtlepage.com

They need more then just a heat lamp, they need a uvb bulb in order to utilize calcium.