Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I will be soon in the market for a new cage for my burm...He is a little guy now, but need some advice on what company to go to for a new one. One with durability and reliability. And of course not being ripped off on price. I'm hoping to get one that will be the right size as to what he will eventually grow too. Any advice would be great....thanks

i'd say just buold your own or find a carpenter to build one for you, even the largest prefad cages i've seen are 8 feet, and some will say thats enough space, and it might be..but i'm not satisfied with it
if you have a 15-20 foot burmese an 8 foot cage seems quite cramped just my opinion. my "little" girl is in a 4 foot cage right now and she's a little over 4 feet, and i am in the works of building something 12x4x2.5 i like to give my critters as much room as possible just my thing i suppose

but..to get back to the point you could check out boaphile plastics they have some decently priced 8 footer cages, i've never ordered from them so i cannot vouch for customer service at all

hope this helps a little bit

James
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1.0 savannah monitor "cringer"
0.1 coastal carpet python "lola"
0.1 dumeril's boa "porter"
1.0 burmese python "arnie"

I am not one of those people blessed with the know how of making my own cages. So, if you are looking for a commercially made quality cage for herps, here are some that I HIGHLY recommend:

1) Habitat Systems: finest on the market...they may cost a bit more but well worth it. You can scroll down to big bertha's pic to see a section of what our huge burm's cage looks like.

2) Neodesha: yes, they are back to making quality cages. I have used neodesha for over 25 years and they are great cages. The new owner is customer service driven and will work with anyone on any size order.

3) Crescent Moon Creations: A new "player" on the herp block, this master wood craftsman will custom make ANY cage you want. We have several on display at our wildlife center and they look absolutely beautiful. We have cherry wood cages and they are museum quality.

4) Vision: decent cages but I have some concerns with their construction and stackability so I would recommend the first three.

There are other quality cages out there but I don't have experience with them.

Hope this helps.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation (IL)

Why so short? It seems everyone makes short cages for their large snakes. I installed 1 inch dowel stubs all over the cage for my 9' to climb on and he does all the time. The new cage I'm building will be 6X3X5 with another 2 foot underneath for a hide box and water tub. Just curious.

The main reason that most people limit the height of their cages to 18" to 24" is because it makes the ability to maintain proper temps and humidity levels so much easier. With that 3 extra feet you are creating so much more space that needs to maintain the proper temps and humidity gradient and it becomes much more difficult. I am by no means saying a larger cage can not be maintained properly I am jsut saying that it makes it more difficult.
The second main reason I would think is because most people have multiple snakes and limiting the height of their cages allows them to stack their cages three and four high.
I would really reconsider the use of perches of any kind with in an adult burms enclosure. Just imagine the force that would be put on the body if the dowel that your snake was crawling on broke or if it just happened to fall off. I don't think it would require a fall from a very height to possibly cause injury to your snake once it get's around 100 pounds or so. just something for you to think about. Hope I have helped a little. todd

AAAaahhhh! That makes sense, the multiple snake thing. I only have 1 for now. Check this out though. The entire inside will not be 5 feet high as if one could fall that distance. The height is split in half. It's like two cages stacked with an entry way to transit top and bottom. I hear ya about the weight coming down etc. Another user warned me about the same thing with big snakes when handling them etc. Right now mine is not quite 20 lbs. I think his growth may have been stunted by minimal feeding his first 2 years. I just got him last October. Does this make sense? He's 2 1/2 years, 8'8" and 18 lbs. I've been told they do most of their real growing in the first few years. I would like him to get around 16', appropriate weight but don't think it'll happen?

What do you think?

Personaly i use 6 foot visions for my burms and retics. there is a industrial shelving unit for sale at home depot that fits three 6 footers with no problem i have heard of visions bowing with the weight of the snakes but i prefer them any way

My big girl (12-13 feet) is in a 8' X 2' X 2' melamine cage I built. In addition to her, I have a number of other large snakes (a yearling albino burm and 5 adult boas) that are housed in Vision cages (which I personally love). If you're handy at all, building a cage is the way to go expense-wise. Otherwise I'd recommend Vision cages or Animal Plastics cages. Moonstruck cages are new on the market, but I don't think they have cages at this point that would house burmese pythons...at least not adults. As Rob mentioned, Habitat Systems cages are excellent but they are a bit more pricy than the other cages. I'm personally not impressed Neodesha cages (based on cages I owned years ago, not the current cages) or the Boaphile cages (from what I've seen in person at shows or from friends' accounts). My top three picks for a manufactured cage would be: Habitat Systems, Vision or Animal Plastics.

Raven

thanks for everyones help......I needed all the help i could get. NK