Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It kills me when I see people putting baby snakes, especially valuable ones, in deli cups (with inadequate heat and no hides). And, for the most part, the comercially available hatchling racks are crap. Either they don't have heat, or they use huge shoeboxes, or they are just badly built. All of this prompted me to build a few of these for this season. Already I love them!

Each tub is 12 long, 3 wide, and 2 high. There is a groove in the back of each shelf housing heat rope. This allows me to house 20 hatchlings in a 14 inch cube with belly heat! The rack maintains a 10 - 15 degree difference front to back. Right now I have a few built out of plywood and a few built out of melamine. But I was thinking about making some out of some type of plastic. I am considering starting to make them for sale.

tell me what you think. Any suggestions?

n/p

here they are

me like! me want! lol nice racks when i get real into breeding ill have to buy 1.

Not bad at all. although personally I would make the bins bigger. Seems like you will have to cycle the hatchlings out of there pretty quick. Maybe a 12" long by 2" high by 6" wide, that would carry you into yearling size or more, depending on the species. Overall, looks like a nice rack (I love saying that!)

Scott
Origin Reptiles

Everyone likes a nice rack.

I am not using it for a grow out rack. Just to feed babies a few times before they are sold. I would say most colubrids would be fine for at least 4 months before needing a bigger tub. Most of the year I plan to have these stacked in the back of a closet.

cheers

A photo of some of my baby/grow up rack.
they hold the containers that are 12 1/2(L)X 6(W)X 3 1/2(D)

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Thanks
Jim
Home Grown Herps

holy cow!!! thats a ton of babys. maby one day ill have that many...heck i can barly get my breeer mice to have babys....in the past 2 weeks 2 have given birth and 2 more are pregnate for 14 snakes....

Thats a real nice rack. Do you use that for all of your hatchlings or just your own holdbacks? With mine I was looking for something just to house hatchlings for a few weeks/months before they are sold.

cheers

I have several "baby" racks, but when they fill up I use the large deli cups (which are actually bigger than the bin demensions you mentioned in your first post).
That is plenty of room for them up to 5-6 months.
And they are available w/ or w/ out airholes.

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Thanks
Jim
Home Grown Herps

This little rack looks good. I've never used a rack system, so I don't know whether it would work. I'd assume that you know what you're doing, so I'd assume that it would work well.

If you are trying to make money selling these racks, I think you need to offer more flexibility. As I read the comments here, I don't see as much interest in a rack system that will only house baby snakes for a few months. The only people who need something so specialized are well-established breeders. Most of them are likely to have something that they use already. On the other hand, people who are new to the practice of owning multiple snakes and using a rack would appreciate something that is moderately priced and moderately sized. However, to be valuable to them, they'd need to use it for more than four months. If you could offer different sizes of tubs that still fit in the same slots, people with other needs could still use these racks and might be interested in purchasing them.

Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.

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