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Converting a Barrister's Bookcase into Reptile Enclosure?

Cervine

Cervine

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So I was at the local antique store, saw something like this and was immediately like "Is that a reptile display case?"

1_18286513c03de6e94ecd112b6b6c03e7.jpg


Nope, it's a Barrister Bookcase, apparently used to protect books and keepsakes from changing elements and grabby children. The glass swings open and slides back. Anyway, I've been researching and found cheap ones at office depot ($50-$70) and think I'm going to go look at one tonight. For someone like me who has 4 snakes- not enough to warrant a rack system, but maybe a few too many to house in separate tanks, I think this would be a very nice-looking alternative to my current kind of ghetto rack setup. The Barrister shelves also traditionally stack so you can theoretically add more shelves on top later.

Of course there's the matter in converting it into something a bit more animal friendly. So I ask... does anyone have experience converting something like this into an enclosure? I figure I'll need to lay the bottom with glass or some sort of treatment (The ones at office depot are wood) and maybe install heat lamps inside (Just because it would look nicer than having heat tape or pads). Also there's the matter of putting a latch on it... I'm not the biggest DIYer so any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Either way, I'll keep this updated if anything comes of it.

Thanks!
 
Personally I think it would be a shame to convert something like that to a reptile cage. They are usually made of oak and pretty nice pieces of furniture. Also, I'm not sure how long oak would stand up against the spillage and the humidity of a reptile enclosure.
 
Forget what I said. The picture hadn't materialized when I made my post. Someone painted it or it is an inexpensive one. Still have to make waterproof surfaces on the inside though.
 
Id get a waterproof stain and apply it to the inside so you don't have decaying wood. Heatlamps would also warp the wood, so heat tape would be better, but its up to you. The pic won't load for me so I can't offer any more advice :(
 
Pic loaded. A heatlamp would be fine for it, but also need some belly heat, id go with heat tape and justg attach it to the bottom of each cage. Just make it water proof like my last post sujested, and for a latch, id say velcrow tacky I know, but it would allow air movement threw the cage. From the size of the picture they appear to be rather large, so your not keeping baby corns lol. Hope this helps some :)
 
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