Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i am building a custom cage for my beardies it will be 8 feet long four feet wide and four feet high.there will be a divider so i can seperate them after breeding. does this sound good? please post any other ideas and sugestions and pics of your custom cages.

also my female is a year old and is 17 inches or so and weighs between 120 and 140 grams is this a good length and weight? she eats every day.

the pics are old but i thought i would share

sorry posted the wrong pic.. lol

her weight seems a little low for a year old and 17 inches, she should be at least 18 months before breeding but you might want to work on getting some weight on her. My one dragon at a year old and 17 1/2 inches is 486 grams. Are you sure your scale is working properly?

As for the enclosure i really havent built my own so i am uncertian. The size sounds nice and big and i suppose the divider would work just fine so long as its solid and they couldnt see each other through it.

good luck building your cage, im sure some people on here can give you some good ideas as i know many here have built their own.

what are some easy ways to get some wiehgt on her?? i feed pinkies once a week should i give her more than that?? or should i just give her more food?

check done, feeding pinkies weekly is kinda excessive but thats just my opinion, what else is she being fed? do you have UVB lighting and the proper basking temps? 105-115 basking and 85 ambient temps on the cool side? are you supplementing with calcium w/d3 and multivitamins? i would definatly get her the vet at that weight and get a fecal done to rule out parasites, for her length and age she is quite light.

every day she gets fresh greens (collard, dandylion, ect) all dusted w/ d3 and all that good stuff her temps are good and she has uvb. she does not look under weight but i will wiegh her tomorrow just to be sure and i will get a fecal done.

How were you planning to divide it? Horizontal or vertical? A four foot tall enclosure is taller than it needs to be for a bearded dragon. Floor space is more important than height, though some height is good. Dividing it vertically would be best, as you would have a 8'long by 4' wide and 2' heigh tank which is really spacious for a single dragon and great for several females together.

Another drawback of having it too high is it makes it harder to get the UVB source close enough to the dragons to fully benefit them. the mercury vapour bulbs do up out higher amounts of UVB at greater distances than regular flourscent tubes, but I beleive it still has to be within 24 inches (2 feet). A two foot high cage would allow you to bring basking areas to around 18 inches of the mercury vapour bulb and still give the dragons some height off the ground floor (ie 6 inches). Also, are the bulbs going to be sitting onto of a screen lid or attached underneath the lid? Could be a difference of 2 to 4 inches.

I have a 5 foot long, 2 foot wide and 2 food high cage built for my bearded dragon....unfortunately no pictures of yet, hopefully sometime in early July.

it is not the best but it will work

on the top left i am going to have my uro in there.
top right i will have all of my breeder mice(i will make a diveder to have the females on one side and the males on the other after the females give birth)

in the middle will be the bearded dragons. the middle peice with the lights will be removeable and will be put in after breeding takes place

and on the bottom is where the tegu will go. the door will open like a normal door so he can walk around and one the bottom will be storrage or i will make it into a sleeping chamber for the tegu so i can check on him when he is sleeping w/o waking him up

How many mice do you have? I just keep mine in a rubbermaid container with screen taped into holes I cut into the lid (about half the lid is screen now). Plenty of room for a good size colony of mice.

The cage looks like it will meet all the needs of your animals...not sure how much room a Mali needs but I do know they get bigger than bearded dragons and are much wider bodied. Do you feed your mice to your Mali (do they eat mice? not sure what food they require) or do you have other consummers of mice (ie snakes?)

The diagram of the cage looks like it si bigger than 4 feet high, could be due to the frames between each enclosure, assuming the insides of each enclosure is not level with the top edge of the frame (ie when inside, you see the back of the frame). Overall I think the finished cage will be quite impressive. (what did you use to make the plans?)

when full frown the mali will be around 13" long so he will have roughly a 4x4x18 area. the mali will not eat mice(he eats only plant matter) but my tegu and my two beardeds will. also the plan is not drwn to scale. i used that paint program (you should have it on your computer to) to make the plans. im going to make more detailed plans showing the vents and the wiring as well. i will post those when they are done. im also going to make vents to go allong the sides to let air flow through the cages.

as for mice at this point i have a male and two females and i have 5 others that i am not sure of their sex right now. so i have a total of eight.

the total size of the whole setup will be about 8 feet tall 8 feet long and 4 feet deep. that will give all of the animals plenty of room( it will also get rid of all of the cages in my bedroom!!! lol i have siz cages in my room at this point)

Deffinitely sounds like a great setup Paint is a useful program for quick and simple images. Hoping to get pictures of my new cage by end of the month or early July...still have to pick it up from the guy who built it for me. Mostly a matter of arranging with my brother who has a station wagan to go and pick it up for me. By next week I hope..hopefully before the Toronto Reptile Expo on july 6