Carpentry for Snakes

This is Stilgar.

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He’s 1 year and 5 months old, and approximately 3 feet 4 inches long.

This is Stilgar’s current home.

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It is approximately 1 foot 6 inches long. Can you see the problem here? What’s more, Stilgar will probably top out at around 5 1/2 to 6 feet in the next year or two. This is the reason Jason and I have recently become carpenters, or at least we are trying to be.

This is what we have so far.

Sorry about the low quality, the pic is from Jason's blackberry in crappy lighting.
Sorry about the low quality, the pic is from Jason's blackberry in crappy lighting.

This is the basic frame. It’s 42″x18″x18″ which is slightly larger than the minimum requirements for a full grown Black Rat Snake. It still needs to have edging put on the rough parts of the plywood, have holes cut for where the vents and lighting will go, and be stained on the outside. It’s also going to be lined on the inside with (most likely) waterproof showerboard, unless I can find something else better/cheaper. The seams will all be sealed with silicon so that the inside will be water tight, since the humidity inside the cage needs to be between 40% and 60%. The cubbies on the top and bottom are for lights and heat respectively (I’m actually going to have a heat panel installed on the inside for the primary heating but will have a back-up heat pad on the bottom of the ‘cold’ side for when it gets really cold in here during the winter). The openings to the cubbies will be covered with trim on the front and allow access from the back. We still need to build the door, which will be a large sheet of plexi-glass with a wooden frame that will be hinged on the bottom and will swing downward to allow full access to the cage and easy cleaning.

Phew, that’s a lot of work still to do and Stilgar seems to be going through a growth spurt so we’re on a bit of a timetable here.

Updates will be provided as we progress 🙂

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Carpentry for Snakes
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One thought on “Carpentry for Snakes

  1. 1

    I’ve been involved in Carpentry for Reptiles before. In that case it was an iguana, and the cage ended up being about 6 feet tall, 8 feet long, and 3 feet deep. It was a bit larger than was needed for a single iguana, but that was okay.

    Pets lead to carpentry. (At least they do if you’re doing it right.)

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