Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got a 13 inch Black and white Tegu and am gonna be getting the materials to make a 6x4x3 cage tommmorw. I was wondering what kind of materials and wood types you have made your cages out of.

Last ones I made were 1/4 inch plywood I think, with 2x2's framing it. worked out nice except I used plexiglass for the doors and my guy could lean on them to bend them enough to pop them out of their tracks - and bingo, he's out. I ended up tacking some wood around the edges of the plexi so they didn't bend, but if/when I build more I'll probably just do glass. Plexi is too flexible, plus it scratches up pretty quickly.

Anyway overall the cages worked out nice, and it was pretty cheap (maybe $250 to build 2 8x3x2's). Only thing you might want to do is pick something besides the plywood for the bottom. I was using one of these cages for a Dumeril's monitor, I had pretty deep substrate and it was pretty moist in there - and the bottom started to warp & leaked a bit. So maybe try something more solid just for the bottom (melamine maybe?)

for the doors in planning on doing slider doors made out of tapered Glass and for the bottom im using ply wood but im gonna put pond liner on it too keep it protected from all the moisture.

I think you mean tempered glass. That said, if you go with 1/4" plate glass with the edges seamed(ground), you probably don't need to double your cost by having it tempered. You'd pretty much have to hurl your tegu at 1/4" glass to have a chance of breaking it.

Craigo

I use 3/4" thick oak ply and build it like I would a cabinet. waterproof it and over 15 years of doing this, have never had issues. face frames and mesh cloth top screen, a hood, a stand and stain it to match. out the door about 90 for just a basic cage in materials alone and about 4 hours work or so.

I also use a white plastic of sorts like boaphile and such and make cages from that. you could use both, the wood outside and the plastic inside i guess too but what ever you do, i suggest you build a strong box with a fixed floor and seal it all up good and strong. water leaks from cheap sealers and back woodworking suck!

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Thnx,

Deven