Lead with the basking spot and the cool retreat
A leopard tortoise sitter manages a landscape of temperatures, not a single warm box. Write the basking spot as the mid nineties to around one hundred Fahrenheit, measured on the surface directly under the lamp where the tortoise flattens itself to warm up, and the far end of the pen as the low eighties, with a shaded shelter where the tortoise can retreat and cool off completely. Explain the behaviour that confirms the setup is working: the tortoise basks in the morning, walks out to graze as it warms, and retreats to shade at the hottest point rather than panting or sitting with its mouth open. A tortoise that never leaves the shelter may be too cool overall, while one pressed permanently against the coolest wall is too hot, and both observations belong in the sitter's daily note to you.
Treat the UVB lamp as feeding equipment, not decoration
UVB lighting is non-negotiable for a leopard tortoise, and the sitter needs to understand why. Without UVB exposure this grazing species cannot process calcium properly, and over time that failure shows in soft, deformed shell growth, so the lamp is as much a part of its diet as the grass it eats. Specify the lamp's on and off times, matching the long daytime period the tortoise is used to, its height above the basking spot, and the rule that glass and plastic covers between lamp and tortoise must stay off, because they filter out the UVB entirely.
Separate daytime heat from night-time warmth
Night instructions prevent the commonest leopard tortoise lighting mistake: leaving the bright basking lamp on around the clock. This tortoise needs darkness at night and a gentler warmth, so if your setup uses a ceramic heat emitter or a heated shelter for cold nights, name it, give its thermostat setting, and show the sitter how it differs from the daytime lamp. State the lowest night temperature the pen should reach and what the sitter does if the house will be colder than usual, such as moving the tortoise's shelter away from a draughty door rather than adding a bright light. In outdoor summer setups, the equivalent instruction covers shade and shelter from heavy rain, because a chilled, soaked tortoise is as much a problem as an overheated one.
Add the power-cut and hot-day playbook
Extreme moments are where a leopard tortoise sitter earns their keep, so write both playbooks down. In a power cut, the instructions are to keep the tortoise in its shelter with the pen covered to hold warmth, offer no food until proper basking temperatures return, because a tortoise that eats while too cold cannot digest well, and call you if the outage stretches on. On an exceptional hot day, the sitter checks the cool end has not climbed into the nineties, deepens the shade, provides a shallow soak, and confirms the tortoise can bury into cooler substrate or retreat indoors.
Leave the whole routine where the sitter works
Heating and lighting notes fail when they live in a message thread instead of at the pen. Leave one sheet fixed beside the leopard tortoise's enclosure listing the basking target, cool-end range, lamp times, lamp height, night setup, and the thermometer's correct position at shell height, plus your number and the vet's. Ask for a morning reading under the lamp and an evening note that the lamps went off on schedule, with anything unusual written beside it. Packaging those instructions into one clear handover is what KinsLe Care Pass does for a leopard tortoise, so the sitter holds temporary access to the full heating and lighting routine throughout your time away.