How do you people house +10 ft long pythons?

I'm not planning on getting a snake that big anytime soon, but I just wanted to know how you people house a snake that's too large for most cages.

Vision makes a cage and Freedom Breeder makes a rack that would hold a 10' + snake comfortability. Then theres the home made option. :D

as i found out.. no one really sells a descent sized cage for a full grown burm or retic.. so the answer is custom cages. most people build them them selfs. it is cheaper, plus you get what you want and make it how you like it to be. most giants need cages that are at least 8feet long. mine is going in a custom enclosure till she's at least 15 feet then im making a really big cage for her. i've heard of some even making a bedroom or an entire shed or even their garage a snake room :P if you go to albinoburmese.com they show how to make a custom wood enclosure for a adult burmese.

I had a custom 8' x 3' x 2' cage made by a local cage manufacturer here in Southern California, the same who made our other cages:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/lourdes2.jpg

i have two 5'x2'x2' cages that i built myself for my two big female carpets... they're 7ft and 10ft long and growing like weeds still.

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Originally Posted by cassandra

I had a custom 8' x 3' x 2' cage made by a local cage manufacturer here in Southern California, the same who made our other cages:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/lourdes2.jpg

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OMG thats AWESOME!!! i beg for their number :) like in my post, im making my own which will look awesome, but its stained dark red on the outside and i want something like that. i need 1 cage for a red tail boa and 2 cages for balls and i want it all to match but i dont know of to many that make 1 cage that size for a burm with everything else.
how does it hold on temps/humidity?
how much it cost for the burms?

BTW love the setup so much! i think its better looking then the plastic/metal ones that are bought. love the storage space. Is that a spidey in the small tank o.O

i've always built my own. cheaper and you can make 'em the way you like.

We use visions until they outgrow them then its on to homemade cages. Our first homemade cage 8x4x4. The cost varies on what you use and where you buy the materials. We house our 13 burms in the same room so its very easy to control the temp and humidity.

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Originally Posted by HABU

i've always built my own. cheaper and you can make 'em the way you like.

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100% :gj:;)

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Originally Posted by HABU

i've always built my own. cheaper and you can make 'em the way you like.

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You mean almost everybody who has a +10 snake doesn't buy a cage?

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Originally Posted by cassandra

I had a custom 8' x 3' x 2' cage made by a local cage manufacturer here in Southern California, the same who made our other cages:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/lourdes2.jpg

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OMG. I want their number! I can't build anything, but I hate the look of the store-bought cages. I've always wanted tanks that look like built-ins.

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Originally Posted by burmmamma

We use visions until they outgrow them then its on to homemade cages. Our first homemade cage 8x4x4. The cost varies on what you use and where you buy the materials. We house our 13 burms in the same room so its very easy to control the temp and humidity.

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i know albinoburmese.com has a little put together plan of building a cage but, its a little on the expensive side. got any designs that ya mind to share that arent so $$$. i looked at visions and such and i dont like the designs.

Would an Animal Plastic's T70 comfortably house an adult male burm?

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Originally Posted by J32A2

Would an Animal Plastic's T70 comfortably house an adult male burm?

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Absolutely-thats an 8 foot-would be perfect.

Granted our female boa isn't in the 10 foot range (she's about 8.5 to 9 feet long...anyone want to volunteer to actually come help me measure her LOL). Anyways, we took an idea from a friend of ours that rescues adult Green Iguana's and rehabbed an unused interior walk-in closet into a mult-level home for our big boa.

The closet is 6 x 3.5 x 9 feet so she's got oodles of room to climb and hang out. It features a basking shelf with a protected heat source for cooler evenings or when she wants extra heat for digestion. It's right in our livingroom so she can check out the goings on in the house or retreat back into the depths of her home if she's in need of some privacy out of view of our busy household. The door was changed from a regular solid wood door to one with two cutouts - one with plexiglass for viewing and to help retain heat and humidity and a lower cut out with rubberized hardware cloth to allow for good ventilation.

Because we have children, the door is padlocked. Only my husband and I hold the keys. She's not a huge snake but she isn't a snake we want let out unless we are both present in the house.

The floor is hardwood so it's protected with a couple of layers of the black rubber/plastic stuff you use to make outside decorative ponds.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Granted our female boa isn't in the 10 foot range (she's about 8.5 to 9 feet long...anyone want to volunteer to actually come help me measure her LOL). Anyways, we took an idea from a friend of ours that rescues adult Green Iguana's and rehabbed an unused interior walk-in closet into a mult-level home for our big boa.

The closet is 6 x 3.5 x 9 feet so she's got oodles of room to climb and hang out. It features a basking shelf with a protected heat source for cooler evenings or when she wants extra heat for digestion. It's right in our livingroom so she can check out the goings on in the house or retreat back into the depths of her home if she's in need of some privacy out of view of our busy household. The door was changed from a regular solid wood door to one with two cutouts - one with plexiglass for viewing and to help retain heat and humidity and a lower cut out with rubberized hardware cloth to allow for good ventilation.

Because we have children, the door is padlocked. Only my husband and I hold the keys. She's not a huge snake but she isn't a snake we want let out unless we are both present in the house.

The floor is hardwood so it's protected with a couple of layers of the black rubber/plastic stuff you use to make outside decorative ponds.

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Do you have any pictures of this setup? Sounds incredible!

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Originally Posted by bsd13

Do you have any pictures of this setup? Sounds incredible!

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i second this!

Let me see what I can dig out. We're still in the processing of tweaking this enclosure. Our original concept for her climbing stuff didn't work out since Miss Big Butt was too heavy for it LOL.

Okay this is what we started out with. It was really just a junk gathering, walk-in coat closet in our livingroom. It's an interior closet so no cold walls and the walls are solid, not something that would fall apart if a big snake leaned on it LOL. We live btw in a 100 year old home so they knew how to build things right back then.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...nalCloset1.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...nalCloset2.jpg

The closet is a rectangle with most of the space to your left when you open the door. The inside dimensions are 3.5 feet deep x 6 feet wide x 9 feet high. The floor is hardwood.

The original door (it's solid wood, this is a must)....

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ClosetDoor.jpg

After doing the four cut-outs.....

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...DoorCutOut.jpg

We then covered the top two cutouts in one large piece of plexiglass (the wood between the cutouts becoming a brace and helping to strength the plex). This allows Tequila to lay on her high basking shelf and have light coming into her home and be able to see out but helps trap rising heat and humidity.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ilaDoortop.jpg

We did the bottom two cut outs in one large piece of rubber coated 1/4" hardware cloth, again using the pre-existing door design to brace and attach the cloth to. This lower meshed opening allows for ventilation to enter the enclosure. Tequila often coming to her mesh to check us out. Both our dog and cat have done some nose to flicking tongue greets with her and it's pretty funny stuff (yes we are closely monitoring this and no they can't actually get in physical contact with each other :)).

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Doorbottom.jpg

Bella the Lab checking out Tequila and her new digs.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...therout04-.jpg

The door completed (lock and light not installed yet in this pic). It's a solid door because a powerful snake needs that sort of thing. Because we have children we do have this door padlocked at all times. Only my husband and I have the keys to this lock. We don't want our kids to make a poor choice and allow Tequila out when we aren't home. She's never shown us any aggression but we want our children to respect her size and power so this is best for Tequila and for them.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...orFinished.jpg

The original two high shelves were redone into one large, reinforced shelf. It is about 5 feet off the ground and it's Tequila's favorite place to relax. Here she is snoozing under the glow of her heat lamp.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...erHeatLamp.jpg

We built a safety frame around her heat lamp and installed it at the highest point above her basking shelf. The cord is secured and leads out of her enclosure to a closeby outlet. We can easily flick on her heat if she needs it for digestion or just if the livingroom is a bit cool in the evening.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...pwithGuard.jpg

The floor is covered with a thick layer of pond rubber/plastic. We also put a piece of wood as a kickplate across the inside of the doorway so bedding did not slip out (there's a slight gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood). This was also covered in the pool lining. On top of this lining is a thick layer of cypress mulch.

This is Tequila's big water dish. It's actually a plastic super sized planter saucer that I found at Home Depot for about $6.00. It helps to keep her enclosure at a nice humidity due to it's large surface area, Tequila occasionally likes to flop in it for a quick puddle around and of course it allows her access to lots of water to drink.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...sWaterDish.jpg

I don't have any current pics of her climbing tree but I'll try to get more next week (camera batteries are toast after taking some pics last night)

Here's the big girl that lives in the closet LOL (pictured with a good friend of ours who originally showed me this closet enclosure idea for large iguana's).

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...rrieMay081.jpg

Pics from last night.....

Tequila having a post-feeding drink (taken from outside her enclosure through the mesh).

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...terfeeding.jpg

Isn't that a face to love! She's such a big but gentle girl and we just adore her! She'd just eaten and was having a drink but didn't mind in the least me snapping a few quick pictures of her. Shortly afterwards she went off up to her basking shelf for a snooze under her lamp (she's still there this morning, the big happy lump o snake LOL)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...kingaDrink.jpg

dude where is the clapping smile thing when you need it!
:bow:

very cool idea.
if i ever get a big boa i want to make a walk in cage =]
they are super cool =]

Thanks! Like I said, my friend Sherrie, actually came up with this idea for housing large adult Green Iguana's but it translated fairly easily for this big female boa.

The one thing with a walk in enclosure like this is that you have to be very aware. I'm only barely 5'1" so when I enter her enclosure Tequila is basically at my eye level/slightly above me on her shelf. If I'm refilling her water, I'm well below her in a crouched over position. This is not the safest position to be in if she took it in her mind to strike at me so in order to minimize that risk we make sure both Mike and I are in the livingroom whenever one of us works in her enclosure.

It's not that she's been aggressive but I think you're six kinds of a fool if you don't recognize the power in a snake this size and plan for safe routines.

Oh I did forget to mention it in the previous post but the total cost to do this enclosure was just around $100 I think. Really the most expensive part of it all was the pond lining but that was very well worth it to protect the floor. Boas peed BIG TIME! LOL

yeah lol
im like 5'6ish and its interesting just with my 6.5' rainbow... lol.

you got yourself a lucky snake tho =]

Thanks. We consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to adopt her. :)

another good setup are some of the "cagesbydesign" setups..

IF you are willing to fork over all the cash.

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Originally Posted by FIEND_FO_LYFE

another good setup are some of the "cagesbydesign" setups..

IF you are willing to fork over all the cash.

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I don't think those are good at all. They let out way to much humidity and are way to expensive. Even if I had the cash I wouldn't buy one.

Just my opinion though.

-Chris-:)