Well, Today was a great day. We've been working on our biggest project ever- We built HUGE cages- started 2 weeks ago. We call it the cube. The total demensions are 7x7x7 FT.. Each cage is 3 1/2 tall, 3 1/2 wide and 7ft long. That doesn't sound all that large- but its HUGE!! we had 3 people in one cage with room to spare. Find something in your house that is the same measurement- like your couch.
We built it (with a lot of help from our neighbors on both sides) in 4 days. I sealed up cracks and gaps with silicone caulk- had to let it sit for quite a while. Then we painted it with water based paint- other things were recommended- such as fiberglass cloth and such- but that was much too expensive for the floor space we needed. Had to let that dry and air out. Then I put the heating elements in and had to tamper with that a bit- only took 3 days to get the right temps going. The cages are in a seperate building from our house that is all for reptiles- so the air temps out there can be kept 'reptile friendly'- as oppose to our house that is "me friendly". They have thier own AC and Heaters for the building that are run seperate from the house. and do not ask how much our electric and gas bills are- you do NOT want to know!!
I built and painted Hide boxes, Built a frame for the water bowls to sit in- which are huge as well- most of the snakes will be able to soak thier whole body- made the frame so the bowls can't tip over.
Drilled holes in the back of the cages for cords to come out the back. got the cords run and covered up- so the snakes can't get tangled up.
I put a dozen layers of newspaper down (we were thinking about something like astro turf to make it 'prettier' but we've used it before and its a pain to clean. I've filled up the water bowls and now we're ready to move.
We're so excited!!!
I just thought I'd share the good news- We're taking a break.
As for everyone else- All of our Iguana cages got a face lift- bigger, new shelves, better logs, etc... And they all got moved back into thier bigger cages today as well. All of them are happy about that. Our savannah monitor and bearded dragons got new cages as well. We've switched them off newspaper and I gave in to everyone here saying how well "the mix" works- so we'll see. so far, the sav. hasn't budged- laying on his new rock, hasn't even started digging around or 'playing' but the beardies love it. We cut the cords off our hot rocks that have been sitting in the garage un-used for god knows how long and gave everyone new basking rocks. We splurged a bit on other cage 'furniture' for our lizards and smaller snakes. Some got new plastic 'greens', new hides, caves, misters, bigger and better water bowls. Its great-
Thanks for reading.
just thought I'd share the excitement.
Beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue
