In the tours on the Raising Baby Turtles page we have avoided showing our outdoor turtle pens and concentrated mostly on small turtles, baby turtles, and indoor habitats. But just as we experiment with unique how to techniques for aquariums and vivariums, we experiment with techniques for outdoor habitats. We have already presented a few ideas for outdoor habitats on the Raising Baby Turtles page.

     We have delayed showing our turtle pens because TurtleTails.com  is about turtles not us. The more we show, the more we feel we are making TurtleTails.com  too much about us. That is not our intent. We do not want to appear boastful. We do want to present ideas and techniques you may wish to incorporate into your pet turtle habitats. So in this series of tours we will share techniques we use in our outdoor turtle pens.

    Our goals for housing turtles outdoors are similar to those listed on the Raising Baby Turtles page:
        1.    Provide healthy and safe environments,
        2.    Provide interesting and enjoyable environments,
        3.    Minimize daily and seasonal maintenance,
        4.    Have fun! In this case the fun includes gardening and landscaping.

     Before we go any further, we wish to discuss what we call our outdoor turtle habitats. We have always simply referred to them as "turtle pens". They can be called anything you like such as outdoor enclosures or outdoor habitats. One book we like refers to them as outdoor vivariums. It may be more fun to give the pens place names and even name places inside the pens. Some people may even choose to put up name signs. Remember one of our goals is to have fun.

    Like on the Raising Baby Turtles page, there will be no particular order to the subjects covered. We will simply present subjects as we are ready.