Housing Question

[Smoke]

My wife and I are hoping to be moving some time in the future and I am wondering about building my own housing unit.

My question is... If I build this unit out of Oak or Walnut do snakes have any ill effect with a varnished finish on wood? With building it out of wood and the snakes needing such high humidty if the wood is not finished it will rot very quickly. I know alot of people on here love there racks, but I love to work with wood and am looking forward to building my own enclosure if it will be safe for my snakes.

[snakedork]

you need to avoid some woods. I want to say its pine or cedar. you are definately going to have to seal it well i would suggest getting some formica and putting it on the floor of each cage and about 4 inches up the sides and seal it well that way you don't have the wood absorbing any nasty smells.

[ARamos8]

I'm a bit confused? Do you mean a rack system?

[ARamos8]

Cedar contains oil that is fatal to ball pythons.

[Smoke]

Right now we have 3 snakes but plan to have in the future at least one more.

Basically I am wanting to build the unit out of wood and us a plexi glass door for each individual enclosure. In my head I think I have everything figured out except ventillation but working on that. But my concern is using varnish as a finish to seal the wood and that being safe for the snake. I know it is not for some animals but am not sure if it is safe for snakes.

[kc261]

Some kinds of wood finishes are apparently safe. I cannot be very sure which ones are and which ones are not. I know when I built a small rack, I used some sort of polyurethane and had researched it before I did it. From what I saw, a few people recommended against it, but most said it was fine as long as it was thoroughly dried and cured before use.

[Smoke]

I know that the most important thing is functionality and keeping our snakes safe and secure. But I love wood working it is one of my passions and this would be more of a decrative piece but also supply the snakes with everything that they need.