Reptile Cage Making Tips (Part 1)

Reptile Cage Making Tips (Part 1)
By Mark Chapple

These reptile cage making tips are not comprehensive by any means but they will hopefully help those of you who want to build your own snake or lizard cage.

The first, and one of the most useful tips is:

If at any time you feel frustrated or stuck, walk away and think about it for a while.

Rather than persist, I have found it is better to give yourself a break for a bit. Often the solution to the problem will come to you when you least expect it or you will be more relaxed to tackle something that have found difficult.

It is important to know the needs of you reptile before you start even designing a reptile cage.

Ask yourself questions like:

• Is it an arboreal enclosure or terrestrial or a bit of both?

• Does your herp need lots of water?

• Would it do well with a sandy cage or desert vivarium setup?

• What sort of substrate is best?

• Do you want sliding doors, perspex doors - drop down or swinging or a wooden/glass/perspex combination? Each of these has advantages and disadvantages. Think about how you would like to access you herp

• Do you want openings at the top or sides as well?

Another question you need to consider is what materials will you make the snake or lizard cage from? There are quite a few choices and you need to spend some time find out about this.

Have a reptile cage plan and draw it up. It may take quite a few sketches before you get it right or satisfy yourself that it is what you want. Draw your final cage from different angles. Use a ruler and pencil to make accurate pictures of your reptile enclosure so you get your measurements correct. Drawing from different angles, eg side view, front view, top view, back view will allow you to not only get your measurements correct but helps to give you visual cues when you start making it.

This also has the advantage of reducing the materials costs as you know exactly what you need. It avoids making multiple shopping trips – although, I always forget something.

Make a list of materials you need from your drawings, including sundry items like screws, glue, nails, hinges, sliding rails, vents etc. This is useful for when you go shopping.

Determine how you will set up heating and lighting for your snake or lizard enclosure.

For example:

• Will the lights sit above the herp cage, above a mesh or a circular hole or will they be fitted inside the cage to allow stacking

• Do you need to stack the reptile cages or allow for the possibility of stacking?

• Do you need protective coverings for the lights?

• Are they purely for basking or do you need UV lighting and if so how long will your cage need to be? If you do need UV light, this can impact on door locations should you want an opening at the top.

• Will you make your own heatmats? What sort of temperature control will you use?

Will your reptile cage be moveable? If not there is no need for castors, or it can be places on top of cupboard. However, if the cage needs to be moved from time to time it is useful to put heavy duty castors on it. Alternatively, place it on a cupboard that has castors and can be moved.