I am building an outdoor tortoise enclosure out of pallets. Do I need to seal in the wood to weatherproof it or will it be fine as is?
I am building a couple of outdoor tortoise enclosures. I do wildlife rehab, rescue and fostering and I do all the rescues turtles and tortoises. I wanted to build a few outdoor enclosures for the tortoises but didn’t want to spend a ton of money on it so I asked my neighbor if I could have her wood pallets since she was getting her whole porch redone in brick so had a bunch of pallets from the brick delivery. I cut the pallets in half and I am screwing them together with a wire mesh base so the tortoises can’t dig out. But I am wondering if the wood that the pallets are made of would need a coating (polyurethane?) to weatherproof them or if it will slowly decay without it in the Florida weather over time? If so, what would be the best coating to use?
Thanks in advance for any help!