Ricky's Reptile Enclosure

[ocean girl]

I was wondering about Ricky's tanks as well. I think it looks great. I actually emailed him a while back just to ask him some questions about BP's and he called me back! He's really nice. It's a home base business. He reminds me of Ben Steller, from Something About Mary. LOL!

[templarknight]

That's awesome. Every time I emailed him I got an email back within 20 minutes. I LOVE that so freakin' much. That's one thing that Im really particular on is customer service since I work in customer server currently. I can't stand poor customer service.

Love the fact when I email someone in a business and I get an email back within minutes or even some time during the same day I email them. Can't stand it when I get an email back a few days later.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Here are some reviews

http://rickysreptileenclosures.com/reviews

Keep well,

Ricky's Reptile Enclosures

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Brace yourself for a slam...

It looks really nice, but I see the following negatives:
* Too transparent - 5 of those 6 sides should probably be opaque
* Overpriced
* Too limited - sized only for ball pythons, they should have a more diverse line.
* Nice tagline, but the guy "Ricky" needs to hire someone with more charisma to do their videos, or he should take lessons from the guys at BHB who do Snakebytes. I mean REALLY, compare the two. Ricky reminds me of Sylar from Heroes, in his socially inept watch repair phase.

Two much better, and still good looking enclosure manufactureres come to mind:
Sly Plastics - similar to Boaphile, but with cleaner, more modern aesthetics.
Animal Plastics - VERY well loved, and endorsed by many. Clean aesthetics, and neat in a stack.

Hello,

We do make several opaque showcases, the clear is only an option

As for size, we have tested several different sizes of our showcases and enclosures and the sizes we stock has proven to be the best! We DO make custom size showcases all the time though.

I agree, I'm not an actor. Actually, the videos are very boring. BUT - they do give proper care information which was the intention Brian with SnakebytesTV is much better, but he also has a film crew, editor and production assistants... He also uses one of our clear showcases. Have you seen it in his videos?

Anyhoo... keep well and have an amazing day!

-Ricky

[Lferg]

Yes Ricky, but why are the SOO expensive? They seem very over priced. And how have you tested a square box to be better than a longer one? Seriously, I'm asking not slamming on your stuff. Heck you don't see me making anything.

[Rickys_Reptiles]

Yes Ricky, but why are the SOO expensive? They seem very over priced. And how have you tested a square box to be better than a longer one? Seriously, I'm asking not slamming on your stuff. Heck you don't see me making anything.

Hello,

Well, the price of the showcases are determined by a few things.

Firstly is the materials. The showcases are made from high end acrylic materials, 1/4" thick. The hinge is acrylic also. These materials do cost a fair bit, which obviously makes the show case cost more then PVCX, which is a cheap material.

Second is time. In order to bend a sheet of 1/4" acrylic without it breaking, bubbling or looking messy takes time. Each showcase takes a few hours to make, and is made by very skilled craftsmen/women. PVCX is very simple to bend, which is why PVCX is cheaper then acrylic. This isn't just my opinion - it's a cold hard fact that PVCX is much easier to work with.

Third is packaging. Because the showcases are fragile they require more packaging then PVCX. Each showcase is packaged with foam corners, in a box like any other enclosure on the market. However, they are also crated individually with wood - this costs and takes time.

For some reviews, you can CLICK HERE

Now, the second thing you wanted to know was how we tested.

What we did was produce several sizes of showcase. We then let normal female ball pythons live in the showcases. We tested for eating habits, amount of time doing natural things such as hiding vs looking around. We tested for biting (or aggressive behavior), shedding and defecating. We conducted these tests over a few months. The showcase which we sell proved to be the best in all the categories. And just to be clear... once we got the results we wanted from this size enclosure (20x24x18) we made sure to test it with various snakes to make sure the results were the same...which they were.

We take our products very seriously, and we spend several thousand dollars on testing and prototypes before anything hit the market.

I hope this helps

[Kingofspades]

I think for the price of one of their adult cages, you could get a 6 tier rack from Animal Plastics and have 6x the snakes...

[Rickys_Reptiles]

I think for the price of one of their adult cages, you could get a 6 tier rack from Animal Plastics and have 6x the snakes...

Sounds about right! I think for the price of our single door showcase you can also buy 2 from boaphile.

However, you just won't get a genuine high quality Ricky's Reptile Enclosures showcase. You get what you pay for, this is one of those cases.

Why spend 500.00 on an awesome Bumblebee and then hide it in a tub, or throw it in a cheap PVCX enclosure? Why not show it off?

There are lots of enclosures on the market today, but only 1 showcase.

[wwmjkd]

Sounds about right! I think for the price of our single door showcase you can also buy 2 from boaphile.

However, you just won't get a genuine high quality Ricky's Reptile Enclosures showcase. You get what you pay for, this is one of those cases.

Why spend 500.00 on an awesome Bumblebee and then hide it in a tub, or throw it in a cheap PVCX enclosure? Why not show it off?

There are lots of enclosures on the market today, but only 1 showcase.

couldn't agree more. it's just somewhat cost-prohibitive for beginners. I plan on purchasing from RRE when I can afford it. in the meantime AP and boaphile both make great cages that are display quality and go for about half the price.

[Skiploder]

AP cages leak over time and also I've had sagging issues with their larger cages.

Boaphile are decent cages.......great? No. They are fine for the price. I don't think I've ever had one that didn't sag a bit over time either............leakproof - yes. Sag proof - no. In fact for the money, Boaphile and AP aren't even necessarily the nicest option out there. But like many things on the internet, once you repeat something enough times, it apparently becomes true.

I use Freedom Breeder racks now (in addition to some old Sandemar racks that are refugees from another century). They cost more than an comparably sized AP or Boaphile racks, but frankly I got tired of tubs not fitting after a few years with AP and Boaphile due to sagging. I got tired of cracked off pieces of XPVC coming off in my hand when I had to move racks around.

I got tired of long lead times and I got tired of opening my shipping boxes to cracked and busted racks or rack panels. I got tired of unanswered e-mails and unreturned phone calls. I've spent a lot of money on cages and racks and have learned a very important lesson - if would have saved quite a bit of money if I had bit the bullet and spent a bit more money initially.

Some of my Freedom Breeders are very old and have held up beautifully over time. No sagging, no leaking and someone also picks up the phone or answers an e-mail when I need to order more.

I don't know Ricky and I have never purchased one of his cages, but maybe some of you should realize that Boaphile and AP aren't the end all when it comes to caging and rack systems. Not even the more affordable plastic systems.

If you don't want to buy his product, that's your decision. But two pages of belly aching about how expensive they are? Really?