Homemade collapsible Tortoise or Reptile run

"Nutcracker" is a new edition to the family, a Russian Horsefield Tortoise. We got him in December 2014 and he or she (personally i think it's a he) is extremely small, so small that when you turn your back for 2 minutes he has disappeared under the sofa.A tortoise needs a lot of space to explore and the perfect place for that is in the Garden, unfortunately due to the British climate during the winter it's far to cold. So i decided to build an indoor enclosure for him to explore freely outside of his normal home.

The key design points were as follows.

1 - It needs to be cheap to make £20 - £30
2 - It needs to be collapsible for easy storage
3 - It needed to be as big as possible to give him enough space to explore
4 - It needed to be clean and safe

Below is the solution that i came up with.




I made is using 2 Lengths of MDF Cladding because it's strong but flexible. I simply measured the length i needed, cut it with a hand wood saw and hinged 2 corners with 2 brass hinges as seen in the picture below. This allows me to fold 2 lengths for easy storage.




The other corners re just freely joined together, you could secure with a hook of some kind of maybe even use Velcro for ease of use if you wish. As you can see below Nutcracker always inspects my work.




This enclosure is ideal for a Tortoise but can also be used for other Reptiles, for example my Bearded Dragon has also had a run around on occasions.


I also own a Yemen Chameleon (veiled chameleon) which i started a dedicated website for here. Free Yemen Chameleon Care Guide