Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Bad news. My roomates are forcing me to move my rat rack into a shed in the backyard. A room that was considered my storage area is now being claimed by everyone else. I'll be moving into a new place around the end of this year which will have a shed in the backyard so then it won't be a problem. But until then a custom shed is being constructed. The idea is to mainly just use 2x4's and plywood and then maybe some cheap old blankets stapled on the inside to help insulate. I'll probably also run an extension cord out there and wire up an incandescent bulb to provide light and heat.

Anyone have any thoughts I should keep in mind?

VENTILATION!..

make sure you have ALOT of it.. and make sure your windows (if any) are secured from the outside with 1/4" hardware cloth to provent any outside visitors from breaking in and thrashing your colony.

HEAT!...

not sure where you live, but here in washington during the winters i have to supply supplimental heat to my outdoor shed..

best of luck

dan

I use styrofoam insulation -1". It's pretty cheap. Cut it a little oversize - 1/8" - and push it up between the 2X4's. It stays by itself. It is a smoke hazard if you have a fire, so keep your wiring legit. Don't plug 27 things into the same cord.

I'm against windows. It's hard to control the amount of heat from the sun in the summer and you lose alot of heat in the winter. I use heater vents. They can be opened and closed as you need and spaced where you want. Cut a hole and screw them right to the plywood. Another good way to vent that is even cheaper is to cut part of the floor out, cover it with hardware cloth and window screen, then nail some 1x2 slats over it so you don't step through and bust your ankle, or place the whole in the floor under some shelving where no one steps. I have a bathroom exhaust fan screwed to the ceiling to draw air in. I don't run that very often, only when it's really hot.

I use a sterlite box (16 Qt?) and an automatic watering system. It's hung from eyebolts that are screwed to the 2X4s for the roof.

I sloped the roof and the floor. If something spills it just drains out the side. To make the door, I nailed the front on, drew a door, cut it 95%, put on three hinges, and finished the cut. Bingo, door. You won't find it in Better Homes and Garden, but it works. You can screw a 1X3 on the side opposite the hinges. Bingo, door stop.

Good Luck,

DeMak

P. S. it's cheaper if you draw it out first. You won't get everything perfect, but your sure to eliminate a couple of screw-ups.

Hubby and I moved into our very own house. One of our considerations, espeically for him, was to get the mice OUT of the house and into some sort of shed. So we bought a house that had a pre-built 12 x 8 shed. Of course this had no electricity, insulation, or ventilation. We're still getting it spiffed up. First thing we did was weatherproof the inside plywood flooring. (The previous owners left 10 gallons of weatherproofing behind when they left, so why not use it). After that we cut a hole in one wall and put in an air conditioner. Put insulation in the walls and covered it with cheap siding. Did the same to the ceiling (still working on that actually). Are preparing to hang a long flourescent light inside. When we're done there will be about four heater type vents around the ceiling, light, electricity, air conditioning. We'll bring in a space heater if we feel it is getting too cold at night later in the year. As it gets warmer next spring I have plans of building a permanent hatchling/juvie/adult snake rack along one wall, and making my mouse/rat racks more permanent on the other wall. I'll have eggs incubating on shelves on one end. Outside the "mouse house" I have a large storage bench in which I place my bedding and food items. The used bedding goes in hubby's compost bin, for his gardening. It will probably be the end of next summer before we get it fully energy efficient. When it's 100 for 60 days in a row, gotta have an efficient, air-conditioned mouse house.
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~Sasheena

My concerns are about the cost of running this. I sell some of my rats to some locals but I don't make much of any money. I really can't afford to heat the rack in the winter. I plan on insulating the shed with regular house insulation, and I'll have a light and a fan wired out there, but if a regular 75watt bulb doesn't heat the rack enough in the winter then I might be in trouble. In california electricty is too expensive to heat things that way. I'll have to consider propane heat or something else. Also it will be very hard to establish the balance between enough ventilation and too much heat loss.

I'm just going to have to hope this works out.

>>if a regular 75watt bulb doesn't heat the rack enough in the winter then I might be in trouble.

Where in CA? In L.A. I have no trouble keeping the shed warm enough with a light bulb or ceramic heater. I don't try to keep it ideal, just above 60F. I don't cool in the summer. Today it was 94F in the shed so I turned on the fan. I try not to let it get that hot. The weather man said it wasn't going to be that hot today, but inside the shed it was.

DeMak

LA stays much warmer than San Jose. I'm just close enough to the water that in the winter time it'll hit 40s. But this shed will be insulated well. My plan is to have some sort of adjustable ventilation so when its hot the ventilation will be going strong...then when it's really cold in the winter it'll be almost closed and I'll have a 100 watt bulb in there or something.

I'm also concerned about how the neighbors will feel about the stink. Because it will stink in there backyards now. I was thinking of maybe using a very large (like 20 feet) PVC tube and venting it up the tube like a chimney. We'll see.

i'm not to the point of being able to build a shed but one of the things that i plan to do is like what was previously mentioned. i plan on haveing an effecient fan in the roof that is attached to a 20' or 30' length of metal circular ducting. that way the smell doesn't bother me or the neighbors. i know a few people breeding in sheds in their back yards out here that have had lots of complaints from their neighbors over this subject.
i plan on buildingan outbuilding next to part of my house. i will have a window from the house accessing the outbuilding. i'll leave the window partly open all the time. that way the negative pressure from the outbuilding, due to the fan, will pull warm or cold air from the house in the winter or the summer.
instead of having windows in the outbuilding ther will be a couple of opaque skylights so there is a natural light cycle.
just some thoughts i've had as i have designed the thing in my head.
some oof my writing about was a little garbled. sorry. chris

The Animalman's Website

Ah! San Jose! Now there is a place whose temperature I know well, since I grew up there. I think that any well insulated shed will hold in enough temperature. On the nights it drops below 40 degrees put a space heater in on a timer... set it to go off for an hour or so. That alone should keep the place warm enough to get through the night.

As far as stink, I change the cages twice a week, and it's never too bad. I did have a nosy neighbor at my last home that called in the city inspector, but that was mostly spite because I wouldn't tell her what a new piece of furniture (mouse rack) was for. As long as you are cleaning cages twice weekly it will never get too bad. Once a week and it will be a bit of a smell. Longer than that and the neighbors will call it in!
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~Sasheena