Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i was wanting to get some ideas for a beter visualy appealing but still dark,tight,secure my sav is almost 3 ft ive been using a 3 1/2" pvc pipe which is working great but it looks terrible i also use a large clay basin with a hole knocked out in the side

i am also trying to bulk him up a little so any suggestions would be great ooo yeah i have looked every where for cork bark in my area and cant find big enough pieces to suit him

one more thing i have some large branches more like small,long logs they are about 5" wide and he never seems to use them should i remove them so he has more floor space thanks alot

i would use dirt so he could dig a burrow but my cage isnt deep enough for that it only has about 5 inches for substrate when i build his next cage i think i will make it out of a alluminum sp? cattle things i cant seem to recall the name of them but i know robyn at PE uses them i found one at a place called tractor supply sooo...

that should be started in a few months in the mean time i will need to make a few better hides they just dont look nice in the cage he is in now i really have no ideas that look natural and are still ideal maybe a rock pile of some sort but that would require alot of space soo any suggestions would be great

Well, if you really feel they have to look nicer, look around on the cage building forum and stuff for info on how to make fake rock out of styrofoam, tile grout, sand, and some other things. The end product is nice and very strong. I hope to try it soon.

I've found with my mali uromastyx (also a burrowing species of lizard) that if you can't have 2' of dirt to burrow in, you can make do other ways. Right now I have a hide made out of two pieces of a retes stack. I put them lower than the top of the relatively thin layer of dirt, stuffed them with dirt (except for a little hole just big enough for her to fit in so she gets the idea). In my next cage, to make it even more burrowish (I know it's not a word), I'm going to combine even more so it's longer, and then I'm going to cover the whole thing with dirt to disguise it. The whole point is being able to have them burrow with low substrate. I might use a rubbermaid box filled with dirt in the next cage though...we'll see.

I have shallow dirt in my cage, but I have a piece of plywood on one side of the enclosure with a thin layer of dirt over it. When you look at the cage, the substrate is level so you never even know the plywood in in there. I start a hole to get under the plywood and the monitor digs it out, and he has a nice burrow that looks like a hole in the dirt. It is very nice looking and does not take away any floorspace.

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Ed

There are water dragons, chameleons, and monitors in my jungle room.

Also a very good idea....I just may use that in my next uro cage. I get to start on the cages whenever I can get my dad to go get the plywood...so who knows when that will be. So basically you just started putting the soil in, and once it got to about the level you want (or think the lizard will want) you squish the plywood over the soil and cover it with soil? Sounds like a good way to give the lizard(s) a fair amount of freedom with burrowing (except for up or down really), and do it without having to have 2' of dirt.

Yeah, it works great. He also digs borrows in other places in the cage, but he uses the one under the plywood mostly. He even makes other entrances. He seems to really like it.
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Ed

There are water dragons, chameleons, and monitors in my jungle room.