Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am planning on building a plywood cage about 6' by 3' by 2' (assuming i dont buy one) (LWH) for a tegu i plan on getting. Would i need to make a frame out of 2 by 2's or 2 by 4's so it would be stronger? if i did what would the frame i needed to make look like? what would the cost for a cage that big be? it would have a sliding glass door about 5' by 2' on the front. Would it be more economical (cage price and heating costs) to buy a vision,neodesha,animal plastics, etc? If you would suggest buying a premade cage what manufacturer makes the best cages that size?
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0.1 Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 ball python (felix)
1.1 feral cats (Fuzzy, and Bear; it used to be fuzzy, wuzzy, bear)

A friend and I, Chris (chris_harper2), built a cage out of oak laminated plywood that is 4'x 3' x 30" (LHW)... We used those demensions to maximize the amount of wood we had at our disposal with one sheet of plywood, to go any bigger, we would have been cutting into two sheets... Granted your cage will only be 24" wide, you will fit through most standard doors no prob so that's ok... Keep in mind that a cage of your demensions is going to get pretty heavy when its all said and done...

We did everything the right way, and took no short cuts... The thing is a piece of furnature and a living room display cage so there are some things that a person could do to make it cheaper...

We used very simple tools, but there were MANY man hours put into it... It took us about 3 months to finish, mostly because we are very busy people, but partially because there were steps that we took that we simply could not rush (ie wood finish drying times and various other things)...

We didn't use any sort of frame so to speak, we simply screwed the pieces of plywood together using 90 deg. corner braces... Chris may have better ideas, but I would say you do not need a 2" x 4" frame and you could build the same way we did...

After buying the plywood, the face treatment molding, the wood for the screen frame, the screen, the stain and polyruethane, the epoxy to treat the inside of the cage ($100 dollars for that alone), the glass track and 1/4 inch glass ($75 dollars here), all materials (ie sandpaper, screws, ect) and the lighting and plumbing supplies, I spent about $500 I would say... It certainly wasn't less than that... BUT, this was more for entertainment than neccesity, as both Chris and I love building things of this sort...

Depending on the amount of detail you want to put into your cage, it may be best to go with a pre made design... If not for cost, then for the advantages of being able to break it down to move or clean... Chris, can you post that picture of our cage if you have it on file?
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Ben

Roachy,
I do have photos of the various stages of development we went through while building the cage... I would be more than happy to e-mail them to you... You'll see much more clearly how it was built and what you are getting into...
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Ben

Hello,

I built a few cages for myself in the past out of a 1x2 frame with 1/2 insulation in the middle out two thin outer shells of either 1/8 ply or 1/8 plastic. I attatched the plastic to the 1x2 frame with small trim nails. If you design it right you can hide the trim nails with the silicone you use to seal the cage.

You can design the front out of a larger frame base (2x2) or simply lay the 1x2's the other way for a 2" front frame for any door style you want. You can make them pretty show quality if you use an 1/8" venear on the outside and 1/8 plastic on the inside.

It was a pretty effective, lightweight design and not too difficult or expensive to build. You can also trim it out pretty nice as well.

Good Luck

I uploaded before fixing my mispellings, sorry if it was a little confusing!

Mark Mertens

Animal Plastics

If you want your cage to be worth almost what you paid for it, a few years from now, I would look at the Visions.

I don't know of a cage that holds it's value as well. They look brand new years after you purchase them.

It is the only cage that is molded in one single piece of plastic, not screwed or glued together.

n/p

A cage that size does not necessarily require a frame. In fact in novice hands it will likely just make things worse, especially for a cage with a sliding door.

I have built cages with floor areas of up to 30"x96" without frames.

The cost is very hard to determine not knowing what you already have available to you. Almost certainly cheaper to do it yourself but that does not necessarily mean it's the right thing to do.