In building a temporary enclosure for a boa, I came up with a question concerning the use of the melamine shelving type material that some people (myself included) use in the construction of a cage.

The stuff I am talking about is commonly availalable at home improvement stores such as home depot and lowes, has a smooth white melamine surface that is sandwiching a particle board core.



My thought on this is that it can’t be good for keeping living creatures in due to the constant outgassing of the urea formaldehyde used in the melamine and particle board. This would seem to be compounded by the fact that not only are they enclosed within this, but humidity and heating of the material exacerbates the outgassing process.

I know the average healthy adult human can react to levels in the range of .5 to 1 ppm, and logic tells me that a small reptile would be more susceptible to much lower levels. It's easier and cheaper for me to just simply stop using the material than to get an air quaility check performed within the enclosure.

( I can't help to think in terms of my having built the equivalent of a fema trailer for the boa)



Does anyone have any ideas, thoughts, or factual evidence about this? Or am I just being too overly concerned?

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