Help me out here!

[Argentra]

I need your advice! I have the opportunity to buy a homemade system of cages from someone off CL. The 'rack' consists of 4 levels, the top and bottom being 36"x18" enclosures and each of the center levels halved into two smaller enclosures for a total of 6 enclosures. The doors are acrylic, as are the panels over the floors.

These are the pictures he sent me via email:





Now, do you think this is worth $120 delivered? It's a lot of money for me, but it would house all my corns perfectly, and I just don't have the time to build the separate cages I was going to make for them. This would save time and space, but not money.

Let me know what you would do!

[Mike Cavanaugh]

biggest concern I have with it is the peg board sides and back. Honestly it is pretty stupid in my opinion. A full grown corns poop and pee is VERY messy.... Think about when the snake takes a crap and it gets all over the peg board! that would make one hell of a mess that would be impossible to clean up.

Yeah you can do things to cover the peg board... but you have to spend money on all that stuff and it still won't be right when your done.

Honestly, with the peg board side and back, I probably wouldn't take it if it were FREE.

Now you asked for opinions, and that is what this is. If you need to get it and it will work for you, go for it. I am sure you can make it work with some money and effort.

[Wh00h0069]

I personally do not like homemade snake cages, but if thats what you were going for anyway, then go for it. Thats really cheap. Keep us posted.

[Gloryhound]

The peg board may or may not hold up well, it does seem to do fine with my greasy and oily tools I use when working on my car. With all those holes though I see it could be a problem keeping humidity right and unless the room is kept at the correct temps it could make it difficult to maintain the desired heat. All of this could be easily fixed by attaching putting lynolium on it, some cocking on the seams, then only drilling the holes you need. Probably only another 20 or 30 bucks and can be done really easily if you use the self sticking stuff.

Ultimately I would have trouble building a high quality display type rack for $150 my self, but I am also known for overkill in anything I build.

[Drew87]

The peg board may or may not hold up well, it does seem to do fine with my greasy and oily tools I use when working on my car. With all those holes though I see it could be a problem keeping humidity right and unless the room is kept at the correct temps it could make it difficult to maintain the desired heat. All of this could be easily fixed by attaching putting lynolium on it, some cocking on the seams, then only drilling the holes you need. Probably only another 20 or 30 bucks and can be done really easily if you use the self sticking stuff.

Ultimately I would have trouble building a high quality display type rack for $150 my self, but I am also known for overkill in anything I build.

I agree humidity would be impossible to keep at a steady level.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Forget about humidity! have you ever seen a full grown corn snake poop??!!!! It is WAY more discusting then a Ball poop! IMHO, a cornsnake cage has to be completely and totally CLEANABLE!!!!

[Argentra]

I understand fully about the corn poo thing...remember, I have two fully grown males.

I was thinking about using a roll of vinyl I have to cover the inside bottom half of the pegboard in each enclosure for temp holding and cleanliness. As for humidity, my room is rather humid as it is what with the BPs in there. The humidity in the corn tanks and tubs right now is way too high even with all the holes and more ventilation in the screen tops. Humidity was never an issue for me for some reason.

The main reason I consider this is because I believe the wood pieces I bought quite a while ago to build my own stackable cages with are weathered and warped despite being in plastic garbage bags. If that is the case, then I have no means to make good cages for them without spending another $45 at least for more wood and trim. I also just don't have the time to sand, treat, seal and assemble those cages when I still have a sub-adult and hatchling rack to build as well as a wine cooler to convert to an incubator.
Yes, I know changes would have to be made to this setup. But changes are a lot easier to do and less time consuming for a full time college student.

Thanks so far for the input! Keep it coming.

[missi182]

Adriana, have you considered tanks? You can get (inmost cases) a 15 gallon tank for 30-40 bucks, and you can stick them on a metal shelf from home depot for about $30 (or get one second hand, from a friend, value village ect) as for lids on the tanks there are quite a few home made ways to make them that are price friendly.

[Argentra]

You don't know what some people here call me...

I am the Tank Queen. I love and have many tanks that all work wonderfully for me. But I have the problem of space. No shelf setup I've been able to afford will allow enough space above a 12" high tank to allow me to open it on the lower shelves. Believe me, I've tried stacking tanks on a plastic shelf unit I have. And I don't have the room to spread out a lot of tanks. As it is, I have 2 10gal, 2 20long, and one 18x18 ExoTerra set up right now in addition to a shelf unit of small tubs for my little corns and a homemade rack for my adult BPs...and it's really crowded. Any more tanks and my BF would kill me.

Which is why I would love to have a stacked cage setup for my corns. I suppose I could save that $120 and see if I could get materials to build a setup like that myself with soild walls and such...
Man, now I don't know what to do. The guy wants me to call him tomorrow and let him know when he can bring it over. SIGH. I would hate to tell him I want the thing and have him refuse other offers...just to end up saying I don't want it.

[Argentra]

Ok, I emailed him and told him no. It was hard, but I looked more at the pictures and realized that 1) I could do a lot better. 2) The cages didn't have a bedding guard, which is needed for burrowing corns. 3) I could do better for LESS money if I really tried.

Thank you, all, for helping me see that this system was just not right. You always help.