The Frugal Herper's Snake Rack

[rabernet]

Design was shared by Justin Kobylka and is what he is using for his hatchlings and juvenile animals. Thank you Justin for such a wonderful design!

This is actually modified from his original design and yields more shelves.

Here's what you will need:

Tools:

Electric Saw (I did use a hand hack saw last year to cut all the legs by hand - TRUST me - it can be done - but use an electric one if you can - your hands will thank you!!!!)

Electric Drill

Materials:

Two plastic shelving units from Lowe's, Item #43008 is white, they do have it in black as well, but I've only used white. This particular model is only carried at Lowe's for $19 for a set.





You know you have the right one if two shelves together in the box have a "diamond" shape:





A sheet of Eucaboard from Home Depot, measuring 1/8" x 48" x 96". It's essentially pegboard without the holes. This is about $7.00



Ask Home Depot to cut into 9 panels of 13.5" x 30.25". Should take 6 cuts - my Home Depot gave me the first 2 cuts for free, and the other 4 cuts for $0.25 each. So - $1.00 to cut.

They'll look like this:


While you're at Home Depot, grab you a small box of 1" screws, Justin uses Drywall, I couldn't find them, so I grabbed these for about $5:



Also get some Goop glue (about $3)




Now decide if you're going to make a juvenile rack, a hatchling rack, or a combo rack. I did a combo rack.

Small kitty litter pans from Walmart and 6 quart Sterilite shoebox tubs also from Walmart. Out of 2 shelving units, I'm getting 7 shelves - 15 kitty litter pans, 8 shoebox tubs. Van Ness small kitty litter pans are about $2 each, and the shoebox tubs are about $1 each.

Total expenditure (minus the heat tape and thermostat) for this rack is $94 and I can house 23 animals in it.

Next post - Assembly

[rabernet]

When you open the shelving unit boxes, you'll get this:



Two sides and the back of the shelving unit has a lip to it - you want to make sure as you put this rack together, that the lip is at the back - it's a stopper for your tubs, and one reason why this particular shelving unit was chosen for this design:



Top of a shelf:


Bottom of a shelf:


On bottom of shelf - apply a thin layer of Goop along the long edges:


Place a panel of the cut Eucaboard on top and set aside to dry (I dried for about 24 hours)



Repeat on six more shelves (if you are using the 2 storage unit design). I did not put any on the last shelf, because that last shelf was the base, and the top was what the bottom tubs sat on, and the bottom of the shelf is on the floor.

After 24 hours comes the fun part!

For the kitty litter pans, we cut the legs to six inches (a little short, so that you can adjust the top shelf on each level, then use the screws as stoppers). A note here - you want to cut about 1/4" short on the very first (or bottom) level, because it's not using the Eucaboard, and therfore, needs to be a little shorter to account for that height difference between shelves.

Here's my father measuring a six inch cut with one that we used as the "master" cut:





And Dad cutting with the electric saw:



One shelf done!!!



We drilled a hole big enough to use the screw as a stopper, once we were happy with the "seating" of the shelf on top of the tubs:





Two shelves done:


And for the six quart tubs, the legs need to be cut to 7". The final rack, just needs heat tape and a thermostat and it's ready to go:



You'll notice that my bottom shelf doesn't have any kitty litter pans - my two Walmarts ran out of blue, so I need to wait for them to get some more in - so my rack can be uniform - but it's 5 layers of juvie tubs and 2 layers of baby tubs!

[twh]

hmmm interesting design.what's the gap between the top of the tub and the shelf,will you need to drill holes in the tubs?

does the heat tape go directly on the shelf or is there a way to countersink it so the tubs slid over the heat tape?

[rabernet]

hmmm interesting design.what's the gap between the top of the tub and the shelf,will you need to drill holes in the tubs?

does the heat tape go directly on the shelf or is there a way to countersink it so the tubs slid over the heat tape?

It's about 1/16" to 1/8" gap, and the baby rack that I have been using for a year (the original design that uses the shelves back to back) does not have ventilation holes in the tubs:



Justin doesn't have ventilation holes in the tubs either - but there's no reason why some can't be added.

The heat tape does go directly on the shelf.

[Jyson]

I like it. Sounds easy to assemble, and for how many tubs it holds, you can save a penny.

Excellent directions and photos btw, 5 stars.

PS: Gotta love those fridge friendly soda boxes.

[rabernet]

One tool that I forgot to mention is a rubber mallet. It really helps to use that to tap down the corners to get just the amount of snugness that you want with your tubs.

[wolfy-hound]

Much awesomeness! And way to go on laying out the photos to explain it clearly!

[snakemansnakes]

Very informative.....This should be a sticky

[frankykeno]

Excellent DIY, Robin. Definitely sticky worth as it is an easy build and houses a lot of snakes in a very cost effective rack. I particularily like how I can plug in only as many shelves as I need running. We had Rich at Reptile Basics just send us the strips of 3" flexwatt pre-wired.

We used the original design last year which houses 4 6 qt tubs per shelf, a total of 8 shelves = 36 hatchlings. It's been a fanastic rack (thank you Justin!). When we moved recently, it moved perfectly and fits through any standard doorway. Basically, if Mike and I can build this type of rack - anybody can! LOL

Edit: now stickied

[Bleepr]

This could fit a 41qt sterilite underbed tub... Right?

This would provide a nice cheap solution to my plans to breed this coming season... but only if it can fit my big girls.

And oh, very nice plans! Cheap, easy, and effective =D