What do you use for housing your reptiles & why?

I have aspen in the cage now, and haven't had any problems. I'm probably going to try the cypress mulch for both snakes next time--or when I run out of aspen I should say.

I may get my dad to build a seriously scaled down cage for my kingsnake and leopard gecko, he has all of the necessary tools, which I have very few of!

Clay~
I've seen the pics of the hanging rack before, and I thought about trying that myself for the advantages of the wieght and ventilation. But I got hung up on the heat. How do you heat it? And being SO open, can it be energy efficient? The pic I posted is the Juvie rack, so it is built long side out and loses quite a bit of heat, but the adult racks are built short side out creating a pocket in the back of the rack that is dark and enclosed. Ventilation sucks, but it holds the heat well. I use foil insultaion and one strip of 11" heat tape down the back panel and I can get a 90F hot spot in the back of the rack even if the room that it's in is only at 70F ambient.

I live in California, so electricity is a big concern here!

Here is a series of pictures of how Sean heats those racks. I plan to use a similar method.

http://exoticsbynature.com/ksf/cb70rack01.jpg
http://exoticsbynature.com/ksf/cb70rack02.jpg
http://exoticsbynature.com/ksf/cb70rack03.jpg http://exoticsbynature.com/ksf/cb70rack04.jpg

I also plan on using pegboard for the ventilation instead of the screen material. If heat effeciency was a concern, the front half of the tub could be under pegboard and the rear half under a solid top and the ventilation would still be better than drilling holes in the tub.

I currently use rack systems I built myself. These hold a variety of rubbermaid/sterilite containers. When I started in this hobby I used various glass tanks but the combination of bulkiness, space usage, and inefficiency led me to racks. I have carpentry skills so it seemed natural to build racks. I love the Freedom Breeder style racks but like a lot of other small scale breeders, price and shipping costs keep them out of my reach. I am currently designing a new different type of rack based on the Freedom style. Hopefully I can bring this idea to production and offer a new alternative( or at least another product) to other keepers/breeders Ken


By the way, I currently keep and breed ball pythons,sand/rosy boas, brooksi ,and chain kings in my racks. I have no problems with humidity or heat with any of my snakes.

Homemade racks constructed of melamine and sterilite containers for me.

Same here, I also have about 2 dozen rubbermaids as well.

I just ordered about $1200 in supplies for my new rack made of HDPE. I will post progress pics as well as pics of the completed rack.

These are the melamine racks I am using right now, I too hate the weight of the melamine racks, and after only 18 months, 1 of the racks is starting to bubble from moisture. This is the reason I am switching to plastic.

post pics when ur done

I have a big 30 gallon tank that I have a leopard gecko breeding colony in. It's for display, because I want to enjoy them, not just keep them.

I also have a rack, and I use sterilite tubs, for other animals. The reason is very simple...I'm poor, and these caging systems are inexpensive, easy to clean, and safe. I'd rather spend more on setting up proper heating devices and controls than on fancy cages. (I use mainly products made for humans--heating pads, thermometers, etc, purchased at Wal-Mart. They are quite reliable and safe).

I suppose I'm the queen of improvisation at this point--finding the least expensive way to give the best quality care. (The country-crock laying box/humid hide. <g>)

This way, I'm able to keep the animals I want--I wouldn't be able to do so if I used more expensive caging. The animals have everything they need to thrive, without breaking the bank.

Cassandra,

I would like to know more of your money saving techniques. I also can not afford expensive cages etc... I buy water bowls at Walmart for cheap etc...
What do you do for humidity. I bought thermometer strips for aquariums and place them on the bottom of my cages and they work great up to this point and close to a tenth the price of "reptile" one's. What do you do for humidity? I thought of buying hermit crab heating pads for my sterilite containers and found them on the web for about 12.95 a piece but now I will look at human heat pads at walmart. Any other suggestions would be great.
Mark

I just wanted to interject a word about the use of human heat pads to heat reptiles.
I know there are at least more than a few people that use them, so there is apparently some types that are acceptable to use, not all of them are.
Some brands have a built in safety feature that shuts the pad off automatically after a certain time, something like 2-3 hours. I have one like this myself, for my use not the herps.
The reason for this feature is these heat pads are not designed to operate 24 hours a day indefinately.
While I have used a human pad for emergency overnight heating on occasion, I personally wold not use them as a permanent heat source. I don't trust them for that use, nor do I consider them a truly adequate heat source.

As for the price, you can wire a 1 foot length of 11" flexwatt for a grand total of about $4.50
I just don't see where the savings are in using human heat pads.

Concerning the thermometer strips, you're better off taking that dollar and buying a Pepsi and a pack of crackers. They are made to read fish aquarium temps (and not particularly well), not air temperature, and they are completely incapable of monitoring basking temperature on the surface of the substrate or other basking site.
The same goes for those dial type thermometers from ZooMed.
You can buy little mini temp guns now for $25-30 and instantly check the temperature anywhere in the cage accurately.

As for the price, [b]you[/b[ can wire a 1 foot length of 11" flexwatt for a grand total of about $4.50
I just don't see where the savings are in using human heat pads.

Oh how I wish this was true. I can't wire those, hubby can't, urgh!

BUT, I found someone who could. So now I just have to afford the flexwatt. Luckily it's warming up here in AZ... no heating pads until October.