Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How do you contain your monitor and still allow it to burrow? I am building a cage for a water monitor, he's about 65" long now. I am using 4ga. welded 2x4 wire with a steel frame for top and sides. I'm not sure what to do to the bottom, there will be a approx 6' x 4' pond. Thanks! Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Dean

There are a couple of ways you can handle this. You can dig out the area you are going to build the cage on going down a couple of feet and then do a block foundation. You can pour a footing and then mortar the blocks together or you can get everything really level and dry stack them and fill in the holes in the blocks with dirt and then either leave them plain dry stacked or you can coat then with surface bonding cement (quick wall), With the latter two options there will be some settling of the foundation and if you live in an area the encounters freezes unlike where I live this problem may be more pronounced. No matter how you do it you will want to use 4x8x16" blocks on top of the foundation to prevent unwanted escapes or intrusions from other animals. Once you have finished this part of it you can cover the bottom of the inside of the cage area with one of several materials to create a barrier. You can use a concrete slab (very expensive and you will need to address drainage issues.) brick pavers, or those larger 12"x12" or 18"x18" concrete patio pavers or if you live in an area where you can find it you can use large flat rocks or you can use some type of fencing. the fencing option is cheaper but the concrete/ rock options are going to do better long term as they won't rust. With wolves and high content wolf dogs I believe it is recommended that you barrier to prevent digging out extends inward about 4' from the perimeter of the enclosure (I can't remember exactly but it is about that anyway.) considering that monitors are much less brilliant than wolves or wolf dogs 4' should be adequate. Once you do this you can back fill your dirt over the barrier. You can also forgo the digging and build the whole thing above ground (as I have been doing lately even in Fl. where everything is sand digging out such large areas by hand gets old fast.) If you go with that option you will want to do more than dry stack your blocks. At the very least you will want to coat them with quick wall as you will not have dirt on both sides of the foundation to help hold it together.