Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone built their own Bearded Dragon enclosure? I am looking to house three adults. Where did you get plans? Any suggestions? I am open to any detail or suggestions. I am not skilled at crafting things, however I have several friends that are willing to help.

Thanks,
Aaron P.
Dublin, OH

Alot of people have built there own. If you want a build plan check out garf.org and scroll down the left menu and go to the diy portion where it says tanks or something like that. You can put in your dimensiona nd put wood/glass and it will give you a cut list and show you how to put it together. when i had my colony, 2 males and 6 females i hade them in an 8x4x6 foot enclosire with a bunch of branches, shelves for basking, and basically 8 of the exact same thing, didnt really matter cause they all laid over each other.

ken
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0.1 Albino Cal. King (Fokker)
)
1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn (trouble)

0.0.2 Anery (Thanks Jimmy)(Frodo, and Sam Wise)
1.2 Dogs(2 Boxers, Cookie and Joe, Lhasa Apso, George)
1.0 Betta
0.1 Wife
0.1 Kid

Do you want this cage to be 1) attractive, 2) cheap, and/or 3) light weight?

Typically one of those is most important when designing/building your own cage. It's when you try to combine all three that things get tough. Give us an idea of which of those traits is most important to you and we can give more specific advice.

Another concern with a cage like this is leaving room for full 48" fluorescent light fixtures. However, if you plan to use mercury vapor bulbs and/or plan a cage longer than 4' anyways, this is not a concern.

How large of a cage were you thinking and what type of light source were you planning on?

To be honest I am concerned with the animals happiness and comfort for the best price that I can get. The weight is not a concern and I am not worried about it being attractive. Functionality is my primary concern. I would like to have a fluorescent light and a basking bulb. I have not heard a lot about mercury bulbs. I am open to suggestions though. I was thinking of making the cage 60 x 24 x 24. Again that is open to suggestions.

>>To be honest I am concerned with the animals happiness and comfort for the best price that I can get. The weight is not a concern and I am not worried about it being attractive.

That sounds like an admirable goal.

I would say to use melamine coated particle board. It will require no finishing on the interior or exterior which saves money and time. And it's more than durable enough for bearded dragons.

>>I was thinking of making the cage 60 x 24 x 24.

I think this is a nice size. It allows versatility for lighting heating and will be large enough for a trio of adults.

You may waste some material, however, since most sheet goods come in 4'x8' sheets. A cabinet shop may have 5'x10' sheets, however, or be able to cut some of your panels from scrap. The melamine they carry tends to be of higher quality (more durable, better particle board) which is also nice.

Another choice is to build the cage from melamine shelving available from Home Depot, etc.

A friend of mine asked for a 6'x2'x2' cage a few years back and I ended up using 6' melamine shelves from Lowes or Home Depot. They offered a few advantages.

1) Three of the four cut edges already had edge banding applied. You can't beat the quality of the edge banding on these prefabricated shelves. For one, they start with the higher quality melamine, then they professionally joint the edges, and then use a machine to apply the edge banding that cost more than my house. Ends up being a much better job than I can do with a circular saw and my wife's iron.

2) It was the higher quality melamine (as mentioned above).

3) It was already cut, more or less.

4) With no waste it ended up costing the same as if I had cut the panels from 4'x8' sheets.

I just bought three 6'x2' shelves. One of those had strips cut off or it to make the face frame. That was the back panel, making the cage only 18" tall.

The other two shelves made up the top and bottom. An additional 4' shelf was cut in half to form the sides.

That's another thing to consider - a 6' long cage may be as inexpensive to build as a 5' cage.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

2.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

4.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

I am more than willing to go with a six foot cage. If you don't mind, how much was the shelving? I am not familiar with that sort of thing. Also what did you do about lighting and things? This one has me curious.

I also sincerely appreciate the help and advice.

Aaron

>>I am more than willing to go with a six foot cage. If you don't mind, how much was the shelving?

I don't remember. More expensive that sheet melamine on a square foot basis (which is about $26 to $30 per sheet) but the total cost was the same - at least in was back then.

A similar product at my local Menards is $13 per 8'x2' shelf. I'm sure the stuff I mentioned in my previous post was more expensive than that as it was nicer.

>>Also what did you do about lighting and things? This one has me curious.

The cage mentioned previously was not for lizards so no lighting. For my bearded dragon cage I currently use shop lights with 48" Reptisun 5.0 bulbs. I have also used self ballasted mercury vapor bulbs. However, due to the design of my cage it is hard to find MVB's that will fit. My next dragon cage will be built to allow any of the variety of MVB's on the market.

For heat I use a 100 watt ceramic heat emitter.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

2.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

4.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

There is a lot of russian birch plywood in the US right now for very reasonable prices. It comes in 5'x5' sheets only, which might be another option for your project.

It will end up being more expensive than melamine, however.
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Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

2.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

4.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)