Reptile Basking Lights

June 17th, 2010 | Published in Reptiles

Is it a good idea to build a Reptile Enclosure with wood?

I'm thinking 3 of the 4 walls will be wooden with a glass front. The top will have a wire mesh. The basking light will be placed on the wire mesh. What drawbacks could come from this design?

Something that looks similar to this:

http://www.onlinevivariumstore.com/acatalog/Reptile_One_Saburra_120_Vivarium.html

Minus the cabinet space

Plexiglass is not a better insulator than wood and you can seal the wood inside with some type of verathane such as is used on boats. You do have to make sure that the wood is fully dry and that the odor from the sealant is gone before placing the snake in the cage. I have cages built from melamine. That has a plastic coating on it to make it water proof and then I also sealed the edges inside with Silicone. Drawbacks are weight: wood is heavy. It also will warp and delaminate if you use plywood from the moisture of the feces or spraying (why you need to seal the wood). I use heat panels or heat mats designed for use in cages (with a good quality thermostat regulating it of course) to heat. I dislike heat lamps because they pose a fire/burn risk and they dry the air excessively. Even with a wire mesh, if the snake should touch the mesh, they will get burned. Regulated heat mats or heat panels will not burn the animal. Other than that, they are cheaper than a lot of models out there. If you want to see what mine look like, you can go to my website and look under "about us". There are pictures of the cages there. Melamine is more expensive than plywood, but it looks nicer, comes in a variety of colors and it's resistant to water.

MY NEW 110 GALLON PAINTED TURTLE TANK SETUP #2