Racks and Rubbermaids?

Hi. I'm planning to buy my first pair of ball pythons soon and breed them when they become adults. I will undoubtably want to expand my collection in the future. Can anyone tell me why I should buy, say, an animal plastics rack (or any rack) for over $600 when I can go to Wal Mart and buy some sterilite racks for $10-$20 and wind some heat tape connected to a rheostat around the back, and then burn some holes in the sides and tape the fronts securely to prevent escape?

If anyone has an opinion about this, I would definately like to hear it.

Thanks.

The racks you are referring to have been used by snake, leopard gecko, and rodent keepers.

In most cases they have described it as a failure within a few months. Of course there may be numerous other people who have used them successfully and simply have not spoken up.

Most of the complaints simply had to due with the fact that the drawers don't work that well when carrying weight. Basically defeats the purpose of having a rack system.

I've also heard that the gap at the top is too big and therby not secure. Maybe not a problem for a large ball python.

But it would be a cheap experiment. You could always use it for it's intended purpose if it fails.

Or you could build your own racks. Super cheap.

Build my own racks, eh? How would one go about doing that?

http://www.raintreeherp.com/ads/html/racksys.htm

This is a link to learn how to build your own rack system. I didn't buy the cd but I did take a good look at the design and designed my own off of their basic concept. It works really good and easy. I did just go to walmart and buy some steralite containers approximateley 30x18x18 and fit my racks to that. I tried to use the rubbermaid rack system and found that it doesn't allow enough ventilation to get through do to the tight fit of the drawer and I put 2 series of holes completely around the drawer. But if you build your own it works out to be real cheap. I think I have invested about $100 for the wood , heat tape, steralite containers, thermostat and extension cords for my rack system which has 2 containers per layer and 6 layers for a total of 12 snake habitats. Decent size to that allows perfect fit for a heat pad on one side, water dish in the middle and a good sized hide box on the cool end. With the cork board it allows excellent ventilation and easy to slide the containers out of the routered edges. Virtually impossible for the snakes to get out also.

Between Clay Davenport's site and FineGTPs.com you have two excellent resources for building racks.

My racks are a combination of the two.

The rack could be made reasonably light. Probably comparable to the AP racks (which are quite heavy).

Have the boxes slide in width-wise, don't use a solid back, and use 1/2" plywood for the sides/melamine for the shelves and the weight would be reasonable. I build a rack like that for $40 and it held seven 28 qt. rubbermaids or fourteen, 12 qt. rubbermaids.

Personally, for BP's, especially large females, I'd find a larger box. That's when things get a bit tricky.

Wow, I checked out the sites you guys listed, and that's quite a bit of technical jargon for someone who doesn't even have an electric drill or has never seen a table saw. The materials are apparantly inexpensive, but how much do you think the tools would cost me?

If you have the material cut professionally you can get by with nothing more than a drill.

Otherwise, I rarely build a rack with a table saw. Instead I use a circular saw, straight-edge, and carpenter's square to insure accurate cuts.

If you are only getting a pair for now I would buy the tubs and just use them with lids for now and run some flexwatt under them...Then as your collection grows buy a rack...

Ahhh, but that was another question I was about to get on here and ask. How do the snakes get properly ventilated in a rack like on these sites or with AP? I know that people who just use rubbermaid tubs with lids drill holes in the sides, but I never hear these rack people mentioning the need to drill holes in the rubbermaids.

Keep in mind that there is typically about a 1/8" gap between the top of the box and the upper shelf.

For a typical 28 qt. box this is 9.5 sq. inches of ventilation, equal to nearly 800, 1/8" diameter ventilation holes.

That's an oversimplification, obviously, as placement of ventilation is likely as important as the total area. But you get the picture.