Post by feever on Apr 30, 2009 9:45:16 GMT -8
So I needed to move my Iguana from downstairs to upstairs, and I figured that the best way to do this was to just make him a new cage. The pic's don't really show size very well but it's 8'x8'x4' . And he's going on 4.5' at the age of 3.
The total cost for this cage, not including the lights was just over $150. You will notice that the walls are made out of Coroplas and not chicken wire !!! as chicken wire can be very bad for Iguanas. When I rescued my Iguana he was in a very small cage made out of chicken wire, he lost part of his tail when he snagged himself ( tail has grown back but will never be the same ). The Coroplas or sign board was very cheep on sale at home depot $15 for a 4x10 sheet. The doors are made from an all pet screen that was also pretty cheep, it's like a snow fence type screen and works awsome and he can and does climb on it all the time. You will also notice that my Iguana is potty trained !! He goes in the shallow rubber maid bin( 6"inches deep with 4"inches of water in the bottom ) in the bottom of the cage and since I have put it in there 2 years ago he has never once gone anywhere else, and has never painted his cage!! To clean it I just lift it out and flush it, rinse and refill. This has allowed me to use a pet safe astro turf ( yes it's pet safe and very easy to clean when he sheds ).
Now as much as I totally suggest Murcury vapor bulbs for your Iguana, I just did an energy audit on my house and I made the decision to go lower wattage, so I switched to 2, 48" repti sun bulbs as they according to my UVA/UVB tester will penetrate to 24" and that’s about what I needed. His basking spot is 91 and at night the red light stays on and brings him down to 75.
The Coroplas works so well by the way I now making 3 Frilled Dragon cages all about 120 gal and also a huge Crested gecko cage thats about 75 gal. You just cut it with a knife and hot glue and silicone it! So anyway the Iguana cage still has a few things I want to finish but he’s been in it for a week and loves it so there you go.
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly001.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly004.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly006.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly007.jpg
I would say it cost me with the lights and everything about $250. The 4”x4”’s were free as I recycled them from an old shipping create and the 2’x’3 were 1.99 each on sale at home depot. What looks like hardwood flooring on the bottom is as I had some left over from when we did the house. I used a 15 gal screen lid to rest the basking lights on, and the repti sun light housing came from a recyclable store for $5. So everything was pretty cheep. About the same or even less then some of the dog kennels I’ve seen a lot of Iguanas in. I highly recommend if your ever going to get an Iguana build the biggest cage you can right away even if it’s just a baby, time and life and everything else always seems to get it the way when you try to build a bigger one later on. It also saves you a lot of money building one cage and not two or three. The hardest part was spending weeks figuring out how I wanted it to look but in the end it took me less than 2 days to build.
The total cost for this cage, not including the lights was just over $150. You will notice that the walls are made out of Coroplas and not chicken wire !!! as chicken wire can be very bad for Iguanas. When I rescued my Iguana he was in a very small cage made out of chicken wire, he lost part of his tail when he snagged himself ( tail has grown back but will never be the same ). The Coroplas or sign board was very cheep on sale at home depot $15 for a 4x10 sheet. The doors are made from an all pet screen that was also pretty cheep, it's like a snow fence type screen and works awsome and he can and does climb on it all the time. You will also notice that my Iguana is potty trained !! He goes in the shallow rubber maid bin( 6"inches deep with 4"inches of water in the bottom ) in the bottom of the cage and since I have put it in there 2 years ago he has never once gone anywhere else, and has never painted his cage!! To clean it I just lift it out and flush it, rinse and refill. This has allowed me to use a pet safe astro turf ( yes it's pet safe and very easy to clean when he sheds ).
Now as much as I totally suggest Murcury vapor bulbs for your Iguana, I just did an energy audit on my house and I made the decision to go lower wattage, so I switched to 2, 48" repti sun bulbs as they according to my UVA/UVB tester will penetrate to 24" and that’s about what I needed. His basking spot is 91 and at night the red light stays on and brings him down to 75.
The Coroplas works so well by the way I now making 3 Frilled Dragon cages all about 120 gal and also a huge Crested gecko cage thats about 75 gal. You just cut it with a knife and hot glue and silicone it! So anyway the Iguana cage still has a few things I want to finish but he’s been in it for a week and loves it so there you go.
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly001.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly004.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly006.jpg
i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh214/FEER56/Molly007.jpg
I would say it cost me with the lights and everything about $250. The 4”x4”’s were free as I recycled them from an old shipping create and the 2’x’3 were 1.99 each on sale at home depot. What looks like hardwood flooring on the bottom is as I had some left over from when we did the house. I used a 15 gal screen lid to rest the basking lights on, and the repti sun light housing came from a recyclable store for $5. So everything was pretty cheep. About the same or even less then some of the dog kennels I’ve seen a lot of Iguanas in. I highly recommend if your ever going to get an Iguana build the biggest cage you can right away even if it’s just a baby, time and life and everything else always seems to get it the way when you try to build a bigger one later on. It also saves you a lot of money building one cage and not two or three. The hardest part was spending weeks figuring out how I wanted it to look but in the end it took me less than 2 days to build.