>>I only use racks at this time but when I did use larger caging, I preferred hinged doors with the hinge mounted on the bottom side. This way the door opens downward and does not have to be held up. Most important, it gives me a much larger opening to reach into and pull a larger snake out of. It also makes it easier to remove and replace newspaper or whatever substrate your using. Sliding doors only open up to half the size of the opening at max and that CAN make it harder to reach a snake that really does not want to come out.
>>Just my opinion from my past experience.

OR, only having to open half the cage keeps an extremely active or escape happy snake from launching itself out of the cage every time you open the entire front (fold down door). You have the option of opening whichever half of the cage you want, leaving your jumpy snake on the closed half. On a 4 foot cage, given the average person has close to or more than 3 feet of arm length, you should be able to reach every square inch of your cage with either side of a slider open.

Plus it's really hard for a sliding door to "fall" open if the latch is loose or forgotten, where as a door hinged from the top does have the potential to fall open (what goes up must come down, right?).
-----
"Colubrid-aphilia", adj; An inordinate love of Colubrids.

[ Show Entire Thread ]