Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My hubbie wants to build a cage for our two beadies and my daughter's Egyptian Uro, the beardie's cage first though. Can anybody point me in the right direction of plans or sites with plans for a cage for these two now that they are 3/4s grown as I am unsure of the dimensions needed.

Also, was looking for suggestions for subsrate heating if i make the enclosure from wood not glass.

Thanks,
Elaine

I built these cages for my Beardies the picture is old and the cages have fronts like my boa cages above. The picture shows just the rough melamine carcass. 4' x 2' x 2'. I heat the cage with an MVB on one end and have a vent on the other, to allow airflow. I use sliding glass fronts for the doors like the boa cages.

Hope that gives you an idea.
Jeremy

-----
Jeremy

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" July 16, 1945 Robert Oppenheimer

1.1 Double Het "Sharp" Snow RTB's
0.1 Albino RTB -Coming Soon-
1.1 Hypomelenistic RTB's
0.2 Pastel Hypo RTB's -Coming Soon-
2.0 Double Het Stripe Albino RTB's
0.1 Suriname RTB
0.1 Anerthrystic RTB
1.0 Ball Python
1.1 Rhinoceros Iguana's
1.0 Green Iguana
1.1 Cream Golden Retrieviers
1.0 Pomeriaian
0.3 Catus Terribilis
0.1 Spouse
0.0.1 Youth -coming soon-

I had a large male that I kept in a cage with a footprint of 48"x20". That's as small as I would go. I only went that small because I had some leftover material from another project and that's as much as I could squeeze out of it.

Regarding plans, reptile cages really tend to be a simple box with your choice of door attached.

What sort of look do you want? An all-clear glass or acrylic look, stained wood to match furniture, or what? You mention wood but not the type.

You don't need substrate heaters with a bearded dragon or uromastyx. You need an overhead radiant heat source that will warm the substrate.
-----
Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

Unfortunately with winter temps here being -13f on a regular basis and the fact that we heat with wood so there is no way to raise the room temp in one area, having some sort of additional heat other than radiant is a necessity. Especially with the Uro requiring temps in excess of 120f, the beardies I am not aas worried about but would like to have the option of a backup for those days when the temps outside really drop and I don't want to have 3 lamps on 24/7 on top of the cage as this would leave no room for a gradient in temp.

Elaine

go with overhead heat sources. When the lights turn off at night, turn on a red bulb to keep a hot spot somewhere. If you don't put vents in the cage (or only put a small vent, as I did), you'd be suprised how well one 50 watt halogen bulb can heat up a 4'x2'x2' enclosure.

My uromastyx enclosure is on the floor, where ambient temps can be as low as 60-65 degrees ambient temperature with the lights off. With the lights (a single 50 watt halogen and one of those 7 watt twist in flourescents to add light to the cool side), I get a hotspot that reaches as high as 160 degrees (I put a rock down, and then put corkbark on top of it, so she can choose to bask on or under the cork bark depending on how hot she wants to be). The ambient temperature of the hotside is usually around 80-85 degrees, with the ambient temps of the coolside being more around 70-75. Those are just about perfect temperatures for uromastyx. Good hot basking spot, and nice mid-low ambients.

The bearded dragon enclosure is similar, just that I added another vent in because his cage was actually getting too hot. I was trying to use another 50 watt halogen bulb, but that was getting too hot, so I switched to a 75 watt zoomed basking spot bulb, which produces less heat, and gives me a basking spot that ranges from about 105 to over 120, depending on the kind of day (sunny days warm my room more and overcast days keep it cooler).

Also, give some room in the enclosures for dirt. Especially the uromastyx. Go on www.proexotics.com and see what they say about keeping uromastyx. If you have the ability to keep the uro on a lot of dirt, do it! They love to dig burrows, and having an area of high humidity to retreat to is a necessity!

There are a few good reasons not to include a substrate heater in a cage for a heliophilic lizard. You (the original poster) should really read up on this before building a cage.

Use an insulation with a radiant barrier under the floor of the cage and a ceramic heat emitter for heat (both day and night) and you'll have a much better setup for your lizards.

A deep substrate will also help provide a lot of thermal mass which really helps.
-----
Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)