Newly finished Reptile Enclosure

https://ball-pythons.net/albums/albu...C_010F_001.jpg

Here's a shot of the new reptile enclosure I just finished up for my wife's Bearded Dragon "Kilroy", and my new, as yet unnamed, male poss. 66% het albino BP (visible in the lower half of the picture).

The enclosure measures app. 48" long, by 18" deep, with two levels each about 12" high. Each "floor" is equipped with a UTH. The top of the enclosure is a 1/4" mesh hardware cloth, permitting unrestricted shining of heat and UV light for the beardie (who needs UV light, unlike our BP's). The enclosure is framed in the better quality 2X4's, with 12" x 24" sliding glass fronts secured with "display case" locks. I'm not really worried about locking the fronts per se, but the case locks were the easiest and most secure method of latching the sliding glass closed. The floors of each level are "white board", providing a reasonably strong and water resistant surface. The back is enclosed with 1/8" Lauan plywood, and the ends are closed off with 1/2" pine shelf wood, which can be quickly removed if needed by removing 4 screws (for such things as feeding electric cords through).

The lower level is as yet unlit, though I will probably install a small light bar for easy viewing. I'm using a 9" glass pie plate (bought from a thrift store for 99 cents) for his water dish/soaking "bath". Currently, he has the log to hide behind, but sometime tomorrow I'll pick him up something a little more enclosed for him to crawl under.

https://ball-pythons.net/albums/albu...C_012F_001.jpg

Not a real good shot of the new boy, considering I used the flash through the glass front of the enclosure. 2 of his siblings were albinos. He's about 4 months old, feeding on F/T rats, with nice color, a healthy girth, and a friendly disposition. I bought him from "Reptile Fanatics" out of Flagstaff. They had some possible Het Axanthic females, but those were a bit out of the price range, and the ONLY young females at the show.

Moved to Caging Forum by RPlank

i love that setup. great job.

Dang Hoomi, you got skill. Sweet cages.

Oooh nice cage, Hoomi. Did you pick the het bp up at the show?

Jennifer

Oh, wait, maybe I should read the whole post first. Hehe... love him!

Looks awesome!!! How much did it run ya to build that thing? I'm incredibly jealous! I'd really, really like to build a nice cage like that someday, or just invest in some vision cages or something, I'm poor and lack room though, lol (for the time being anyway).

I'll have to go through and calculate how much it finally cost, as I didn't buy everything for the project at once, and I bought items for other projects at the same time (including the 10" Compound Miter Saw that Home Depot had on sale for $68. w00t! That made the project much easier).

Off the top of my head, it included the following:

5 ea. 2X4X96" @ 2.62 ea.
4 ea. 12" X 24" glass @ 4.39 ea.
2 ea. 1"X10"X6' Pine Shelving @ 6.96 ea.
1 ea. 4'X8' 5.2 mm Lauan Plywood (lots left over) @ 9.99
2 ea. 2'X4' 1/8" Whiteboard @ 4.99 ea.
2 ea. Display Case locks @ 4.99 ea.

That alone is just under $75 before tax. I had screws left from previous projects and the 1/4" mesh Hardware Cloth, though for BP's in both you won't want hardware cloth on top (unless you like having BP's with abrasion wounds on their noses!).

The toughest part was getting the middle board lined up correctly to accomodate the sliding glass in both parts. I think if I were going to build another I would cut wood for two seperate "tracks" in the middle rather than using one hunk. I cut the tracks for the glass by passing the wood across the blade of the table saw with the blade set to make a shallow cut.

The basic design could be modified fairly easily to put more "stack units" in one set up, simply by cutting the main side uprights longer.

When I realized I'm a really crappy carpenter I decided to buy pro ones. :)

I'm not that great of a carpenter either, but a couple of things I've learned are to keep the design as simple as possible (hence the way the corners join together - lots of ability to handle "slop"), and that the right tool makes all the difference. Things like the table saw and miter saw make the job of cutting the wood evenly and square so much easier and quicker.

Now if I could just get a dedicated workshop set up for all those nifty tools...

Phil is gonna love growing into it, he looks so cute in there. What would that cage be equal to in gallons? I got a gallon converter to add to d/l's....just reminded me.