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I live In SA Texas. I want to build an out side cage for my chuckwallas. Im planning on building another for a monitor lizard would be compatible with the very hot summer temps? My price range is $200 for the lizard.

Thanks,
Ian

In South Texas you have hot summer...and cold winter...and ample t° variations for a day too another. These is the problem for outdoor cage.
The small acanthurus could be a good cadidate for a try.
For australian species "hot texan summer" is not so hot, and some days is tooooo cold.

As long as you use outdoor cages as temporary, you can house most species outside in SA.

You may already know that just west of SA is a couple of herp breeders that have experimented with housing reptiles outside in your area.

I have kept many varanids outdoors and have since 1991. All in all, its a pain in the hind end. You have no control and it shows.

The outdoors is far better in some ways and far worse in others. If you have already healthy monitors, they can benefit from being outdoors, but if they are impaired the outcome is often bad.

A friend once told me this about outdoor cages. he said, two things happen, they either get out or die. Sadly in most cases thats the truth.

If you already know what your doing and your animals actually require. Its fun to keep them outdoors, but if you already know what your doing, its far easier to keep them indoors and more successful. Cheers

I have to disagree with the above statement. I have far more success keeping varanus outside. There are so many benefits and practically no problems. The sunlight is perfect for them. There’s no need to worry about respiratory problems and. they just behave better in my opinion. The only thing you should worry about is winter to solve this problem have a nest box that can be heated with a 250 watt bulb. Make sure it’s made of wood “natural insulator” I keep arboreal species and they take to a nest box right away.
I live in south Florida so the humidity difference may be huge. Keep a large cement mixing tray with water so it can soak

good luck.

"The only thing you should worry about is winter to solve this problem have a nest box that can be heated with a 250 watt bulb."

I spent most of my childhood living 150 south of S.A. and part of it 5o miles south S.A. Tx. You obviously have know Idea just how cold it gets there. FYI it gets a LOT colder than south Fl. It gets alot colder than central Fl. where I currently live and happen to keep lots of herps outside. I could get into temperature specifics but that would be a long post. needles to say keeping monitors outside would require either indoor accommidations in the winter in South Texas or some serious modifications to the cages.
Personally my concern on the original post would be the statement about having a $200 window to build a monitor cage, as it sounded like "I have $200 dollars to build a cage, can I put a monitor in it and if so what kind?
This to me is sort of a reverse type of thinking. It should be more along the lines of "I have x-type of monitor and I want to keep him outside for part or all of the year, how should I go about building a cage and what problems should I expect to encounter and how should I go about dealing with them?
Those would be the more sensible things to be asking. I haven't built any cages in a while (I am getting ready though) however for $200 I could build some nice cages that would house chuckwallas or uromastyx or chameleons or several other types of herps for that matter. If I was looking to do a monitor cage I would (at this point) most likely end up spending more than that or be creative with cage building materials I already have, but I have built lots of cages so I wouldn't suggest the latter idea for someone who sounds new to cage building.
My suggestion would be to think about what kind of monitor you might want to keep. plan properly for keeping it indoors first and think about outdoor accomidations later on, plan accordingly on your outdoor cage at that time.

as mentioned, South fla, hahahahahahahahahahaha heck you have wild burms and niles. SA and tucson get to a point where water becomes a solid. Lows here are commonly in the lower twenties, with nasty nights in the low teens. I think SA is similar. On the other end of the scale, does it get 110F or above in S.Fla ???? it does here and in SA. Which also presents another problem. You see mid ninties here is not a problem, its perfect. But too much of perfect is not so good either, heat kills.

Also if your having respitory problems indoors, then you are doing something wrong. its about that simple.

Also what success have you had? The reason I ask is, the term success is not agreed upon by the masses. For instance, I think success is many generations in a certain situation, not just kept alive. Some others are happy if their monitor is alive tomorrow.

Lastly, in most of the U.S. keeping varanids outdoors should be for the advanced keeper, not a beginer, that may be true in S.Fla as well. Cheers

Well success in terms of varanus is having them comfortable enough to breed. Those temperatures are fine and only require some good common sense. I assume you are thinking of screen cages. Greenhouses anyone? There pretty inexpensive to build if you know how, they allow a constant temperature and humidity control but be aware that it still may need to have a heated nesting box. They can also have removable windows for cooling and ventilation. Keeping the genus varanus is for the experienced not the ignorant.

It is not impossible to keep them outside but all you have to do is think outside the box.
Cheers.

Greenhouses can work to a point and they probably work great in South Florida where you can ALMOST grow durian trees outside and where royal poincianna trees grow like weeds but die anywhere else at the mere mention of cold weather.
I live in central florida right now and landscape professionally so I am very well aware of the differences between temps here and temps in south florida. I also grew up in South Texas in 2 different oil patches one outside of Corpus and one just south of San Antone. so I know what I am talking about when I say it is a bit too cold in the winter in south texas to keep monitors outside without some serious protection that is way more than the average greenhouse can provide and a lot more expensive than what $200 will provide.
Just to give you some examples of how cold it gets there, when I was 11 I woke up one morning in January and it was 17f outside. I had a red eared slider in a wash tub that was frozen INTO the 3 to 4 inches of ice in the wash tub. I had to break it out of the ice with a piece of 4x4. Miraculously it lived. I can remeber actually seeing it snow once when I lived near S.A.. I can also remember a year after I moved back to corpus it snowed there on 2 different occasions one of which closed down s.A. because it put a foot of snow on the ground. just a few years ago they actually got 6 or 7 inches where I lived near corpus. btw it quite frequently gets plenty cold enough to snow in south texas it is just that the weather conditions are never usually right to actually produce the snow. I can also remember another occasion where a sudden cold front dropped the temps so low that it almost instantly killed large numbersof fish in corpus christi bay this particular cold front produced daytime temps in the upper single digits to the lower teens and night time temps hovering around 0. Oh yeah and those papayas we can pick on trees here, well you can pick them in south texas as well, out of the produce aisle at the local HEB.

How about this cage

calparsoni. Excuse me for my ignorance it’s just that I have personally seen functional greenhouses used to house many Herps, including rather high heat demanding cyclura. Since your experience in landscaping precedes my experience I will agree with you.
And yes 200$ is no where near enough for a well thought out enclosure.

Frank. You are a true varanid old-timer but I am sorry to say that your rude personality precedes you. I did not expect that from someone who is genuinely interested in how to keep reptiles. There are allot of keepers that do not make themselves public that are finding amazing new ways to keep reptiles.

Is a greenhouse an outdoor cage, because temp control and humidity control sounds like an indoor cage?

I personally use greenhouses for keeping herps a mere 200 hundred miles north of you, not only that I have this thing for fruit trees from the Malay archipelago region of S.E. Asia which is really tough here (It would even be tough in South Florida.).
The point is Florida is not south Texas A hoop house just isn't going to cut it, Ultimately for what you would end up spending on a functional greenhouse to keep monitors in Texas you would be better off keeping it outside in the warm months and bringing it in the the winter (which only lasts 4 months there btw.). For only one monitor or a few monitors the greenhouse idea is really not worth it.

I an not rude, your not listening, As mentioned, S.Fla is not central texas, or arizona, or 90% of the states.

Still you talk but fail to show successful results, and that sir is rude.

In my case, I am being Frank. Your offerring poor advice for the context of the original question. And that is rude. To stick varanids outside in a San Antonio winter would be rude for the monitors. Cheers

What kind of wire do you use on your outdoor cages?

I live 50 miles from San Antonio and I have 8 large monitors (Waters, a Nile, Black Throats and Crocs)that have indoor enclosures connected to outdoor pens. The pens are made of dog run panels lined with 1"x2" mesh wire. The bottoms have this also to prevent digging out and in. The pens are under large pine trees and have trees inside, as well as large water pools and various hides and caves, ledges and logs. When it is very hot, up to 108F, they do spend time lying in their shady pools.

The heavy dog panels keep animals and people from breaking in and provide structure. In addition, the pens are moveable. If there is ANYPLACE monitors can get out I guarantee you, they will. The pens are connected to the indoor rooms by sliding hatch doors.

The monitor house is a 16' x 20' building divided according to species by banks of sliding glass doors, and is insulated and heated in the winter. It is true that the temp in Texas can get down to 17F as you know, and if you do not have a failsafe heating system your monitors can die.

To manage the monotors I open the hatches when the daytime temps are 80F and above, and bring them in at night. When the temps at night are above the mid 70's I leave the hatches open all the time.

If I had only one species and did not have a monitor house, I would cordon off a section of a room next to a window with sliding glass doors and make an adjoining unescapable outdoor pen out the window. That way I could have my air conditioning, and let the summer heat and humidity be on the monitor's side. And in the winter, close the window and make the monitor stay on the indoors heated side.

The 16'x20' was the original portable cedar storage building. I forgot to list the extensions I built making it 32' x 30' to enclose the Blackthroats and Waters. That is one thng about monitor keeping. You WILL learn construction skills.

I lived in Pearsall for a while back in 1980-81. whereabouts are you at? Great Idea on housing the monitors btw much more pricey than $200 I'm sure and to the point of what I was trying to explain to mr. miami.