What do you use for housing your reptiles & why?

Heil to the third reich

Well I voted plastic & wooden Cages

Personally for me these both work fine.I have scaled down my collection to under 10 boas for the purpose of focusing on other things and to not let my snakes lack attention, So rack systems are not needed here ( for now )

I like the ability of the plastic cage to be light enough to move easily with myself and no one else around.There easily moved to clean out side if needed and they hold heat & humidity very very well.


I also have on large wooden cage that i have a old breeder male in and i like the fact that i can stack the world on it with out any ill repercussions for the weight . Its finished off very nicely and makes for something that looks like it belongs in the room VS something that begs im out of place.

I would say each of the options listed can be made to suit anyone but depending on your animal count / available space and budget. Rack systems are great if you have alot of animals and limited space to house them.Cages are great because you it allows you to view the animals at any given time by a simple glance to the cage & you can also house multiple animals in a series of cages .Glass aquariums to me are not the best options for reptiles other then a limited few due to the hassle of cleaning them depending on the species housed in them , its not fun if youhave to lug a 55gal or larger cage outside once a week to clean out ... well theres a lil of my feeling lets hear others on this subject.

I have a custom wooden cage for my two larger snakes--thanks Clay!!--a glass tank for my kingsnake, and a glass tank for my leo.

I use the glass tanks since I already had them for one, and they fit nicely on top of the custom cage. I if ever decide to replace them, I'll possibly build more wooden cages for them, to match the one I have, and they look better than the plastic cages to me.

I voted for racks and wooden cages. I do have several cages made of HDPE, but I no longer build them out of that material.
It depends on the individual snake as to what caging I use.
Adult boas for instance are always in large wooden cages, while colubrids and young ball pythons are in racks.
Snakes I particularly want to view, jungle carpets, womas etc, are also in display cages.

I build all my cages and racks generally to suit a certain type of animal. I would like the uniformity and ease of some of the plastic caging on the market but there are none that are close to economical when compared with what it costs me to build one. Many of the commercial cages are of poor design as well, having way too much depth, or not enough height, but it really boils down to price.

Glad you're still enjoying that big cage Jennifer. I replaced it with three of these.
http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/4x2.jpg

I really like having the two doors that swing open. I did one modification to the cage, which was putting a locking latch on both doors to keep my son out of them--which is a good thing, since the barrel bolts on the bottom two doors are unlocked about half the time now!!

I'm currently working on setting them up as display type cages, since it's in my living room, I figured I may as well make the cages look really nice, instead of just functional.

My boa is tons happier in the larger cage. I'm not sure if he feels more secure in there, or just likes having the extra room.

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/dc031.jpg

In case anyone is wondering, that's the cage I bought from Clay.

I like the ones you replaced it with, the size seems to be a bit better--shallower--which would make it a lot easier for me to reach the back corner, on the side I can't open the door all the way, from the placement of the cage...and I HATE leaning in over a snake if I can help it...

The only other recommendation I would have for a paneled cage like the one I bought, is don't out sand in it unless you fill in the cracks first!! Stupid me didn't even think of that until I already had over 50 pounds of sand in....so I spent forever vacuuming sand from the carpet!!! Seriously, if I ever have dragons again, I'll fill the cracks with a clear caulkin or something similar before even thinking of such a fine substrate.

Homemade racks constructed of melamine and sterilite containers for me. The simplicity of use and efficacy for cornsnakes is just too much to overlook.

I have an eclectic collection of cages. This coming summer vacation, if I have the funds available, I plan on building a snake rack for all those snakes that are going to be growing up and outgrowing their sterilite bins. Other than the plastic caging, I also have a 40 gallon, 29 gallon, six 20 gallon, ten 10 gallon and one 5-gallon aquariums. a few of those were going to be thrown out at the high school when they moved from the old building to the new building (easier to throw them out than to move them) so hubby snagged them. Just wish there was someone local who needed a steady supply of mice or rats, was handy with tools, and would take trades in rodentia for creating racks. I hate how tool-challenged I am! But I guess I can only dream.

I use a few glass tanks, but I have moved just about everyone into melamine racks with sterilite tubs. I hate the melamine, (too heavy) but I am not confident enough to work with plastic (and it is pricey here) so I used melamine again to build my most recent racks a few weeks ago. I've now built 5 melamine racks, (2 ~10 adult BP racks, 2~5 sub afult BP or adult corn racks and 1~ juvie 27 juvie rack)

I very much like the convenience of being able to pull the tubs like a drawer and not fuss with a lid. I use foil insulation on the backs and it hold the heat well, making it energy efficient, and they are not un-attractive (I wouldn't call them nice furniture, but they are not ugly crap either!)

Two thoughts on the racks.
First, I had need for a rack rather quickly recently. I too have gotten tired of the weight of melamine, as well as the expense. I decided to just build the rack out of 1/2" plywood and didn't bother to stain it.
It's a single stack rack that holds 7 blanket boxes. Heated with 4" flexwatt. I am using it to house some ball pythons I am raising.
I didn't finish it with stain, because I didn't want to wait for it to cure before putting it in use. Even unfinished it doesn't look bad at all.
I'll try to snap a picture of it so others can see it. I built it in a hurry and didn't take the normal series of pictures I usually do.
It's far superior weight wise though, I can pick it up and move it by myself. Total cost for the rack not including the boxes was around $35.

My next rack however will be a radical departure from the design I have always used. It will hang the tubs like a rodent rack and be built from 2x2s. They will be very similar to the racks used by Sean Bradley at Exotics by Nature. Photos can be seen here http://www.ballpythonmorphs.com/pfac.html
I have a couple of minor modifications I will incorporate into the design to better suit my preferances, but they will be largly similar to those.
These racks will be very light, not expensive to build, and have superior ventilation.

Either of these options are in my opinion superior to melamine racks.

Originally posted by jenn_jeffery
The only other recommendation I would have for a paneled cage like the one I bought, is don't out sand in it unless you fill in the cracks first!! Stupid me didn't even think of that until I already had over 50 pounds of sand in....so I spent forever vacuuming sand from the carpet!!! Seriously, if I ever have dragons again, I'll fill the cracks with a clear caulkin or something similar before even thinking of such a fine substrate.

That is correct Jennifer. I built that cage because I had it in my mind and really just wanted to see what it would look like finished. I learned a bit in the process.
A cage built that way should really be constructed using a biscuit joiner. Unfortunately I didn't have one available so I built it without joining the panels.
I used a cypress mulch substrate when I had the cage in service, so there was no problem, but with fine substrate like sand it definately needs to be tighter.
I used cypress even when I housed dragons in the cage and used a large tub filled with soil as a laying box.