Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone have these? I'm stepping into breeding and need some plans for some racks for hatchling Columbian Boas... that they can live in up to about 4 ft....Any help would be appreciated.. thank you.
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Lucien

1.0 Columbian Redtail Boa (BCI)
2.1 Leopard geckos (2 Blizzard and 1 het Blizzard)
0.1 Savannah Monitor
13 rats
12 Gerbils
2 Dogs
3 cats
1 Albino Corey (fish)

Up to 4' may be kind of tough. I'd recommend building a sideways blanket box. It will hold seven sweater boxes with a *floor area* of 20" x 14" (Rubbermaid 2221's) or 14 of the 2220's which are half that size.

That way you can house hatchlings in the smaller boxes and subadults in the bigger boxes. I think a 4' boa is about the absolute biggest I'd want to keep in the larger rubbermaid.

This is similar to Boaphile's "sideways blanket box".

One design/plan I really like is the "Rob Jenkins" design. It is a bit more expensive but does not require any cutting. This makes for much more accurate assembly since all the components are perfectly square.

Cut and paste the following link:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/viewarch.php?id=24936,25044&key=2003

This design will likely require tacking 3/4" x 3/4" stock onto the back to make the shelves just wide enough.

I would use the components in the Rob Jenkin's design but assemble it upside down as seen in the following link.

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rack.html

But I don't recommend using the boxes as spacer in a boa rack. Instead I'd use spacers cut from melamine as in the following link.

C&P this link and scroll down to "assembly" to see the spacers and their use.

http://www.finegtps.com/Racks.htm

In summary, I like the components in the first link, but prefer the upside-down assembly as described in the second link. But since using the boxes as spacers is not a good idea for larger racks you should use the spacers in the third.

Confused yet

Lastly, two other pieces of advice.

1) Always plan for too great of a gap rather than too little of a gap. This is explained in the finegtp's link.

2) Finding the Rubbermaid 2221's and 2220's are worth the effort. I like the rubbermaids because they don't have 4 small "feet" on the bottom. Trust me, you don't want feet on boxes used in a lidless rack system. Sterilites make a nice box but the height is just a bit too big to fit 7 tiers into a 4' rack. That's assuming you're using melamine. If you used PVC there might be enough room.

However, I don't recommend PVC unless you have a lot of experience.