I use Sterilite sweater box size tubs with lids in a rack but I feel they aren’t really big enough for my full grown Brooks or Leucistic Texas rats. I was looking into the bigger under bed size, they are really long, but I decided to try to make two-story doubles for my adults instead.
The idea is to use two sweater box sized with a hole from the top to bottom (I use lids and they nest seamlessly) so there are two tubs per rack space. Nothing really holding them together except the nesting factor, a little tape around the hole, and the normal rack space thing. I was planning on building these for breeding cages, but no reason why I can’t keep the big fat ones in this type housing all year. I think they will like it, but this is new so I’ll have to keep you up to date as I find out for myself.
I start out making a pilot hole in one tub and lid. I will use this pilot hole to do all the others so the hole saw will line up and the hole is in the exact same spot in each cage.



Then I use a hole saw at the pilot hole and carefully cut the hole through the tub and lid of the lower tub in one pass.



I used some blue tape that is easy to see in the pics and easy to remove and replace as needed. Keeps the edge from being sharp and really holds the lid to the tub nice and tight.


I put aspen in the bottom tub and some newspaper and a small sterilite shoe box tub with a water bowl in the upper tub.


Snakes quickly took a liking to this set up, easily figuring out how to find their way up and down.


I used twelve sweater boxes to make six breeder cages as a test rack. This one is made of mdf board, furring strips, some kinda mini size 2 x 4 and screws. This whole thing cost about $100.00 and was easily built in about four hours. This was just a trial, but I think it will be easy to get use to taking the lid off with a tub stuck to it, swap tubs, etc. Like I said, I’ll let you know how it goes.

See... happy snakes!

[ Show Entire Thread ]