Red Tail Boa enclosure???
 

Well its about time to move my RTB into a new tank. He is about 15 months old and about 4 and half ft long now. I have been looking at Critter Cages in many different sizes. I don't want to buy a tank now and then have to buy another in a year because he outgrew that one. I have a read a lot of articles that contradict eachother when it comes to enclosure sizes for snakes. I was just wondering what some of your opinions were for what size tank I should buy or build for my boa. I am estimating that he will be around 8ft when full grown due to his growth rate since he was a baby. I am thinking about building an enclosure that would be 5ft long by 3ft wide. This would give a surface area of 15sq ft. And it would be about 2.5 ft tall. Does this seem reasonable for a snake that size?

The size seems fine but
 

what would your option be for material of cage ? Of the vision cages, you would about have as much money invested as you would on making or having a wood cage made. My thoughts and my cages has been primarly wood with always a 2 door system. The hardest thing about a wood cage is very few people can make the doors cabinet style which enhances the cage looks. I also have my cages always with a lip ( dam ) or the doors being semi-reccessed. I also use a keyed locking system on the doors. I've concluded that several epoxy paint or polyurethane finishes is important ( on the inside ) after if you decide to stain/paint the cage. The reason ? The cages that gets these treatments are not as prone to have mite problems and seems to keep humidity levels very well and heat. This next part will draw some arguments. HEAT in a wood cage and how to attaine it : I use the porcelain or ceramic light fixtures always mounted on the top of inside cage with the electric cords running out the top where the fixture is mounted. I had a guy make me cages and he was GREAT on wood work but would always tack the cord coming out of the fixture and run it out the back side of the cage. Some snakes use to get up and push the tacked cord down. I had to redo many of his cages with running the cord out the top as I mentioned. I also use dimmer switches on all lights with multiple temp. gages mounted in several places in cage. In all my years, I have NEVER had a snake wrap around a light bulb or the light fixture. I have heard of it though. There ARE light bulb guards available. Sorry about being lonnnggg winded ! ... :D

Thanx a lot hotman. That is a lot of usefull information. I want to build an enclosure. I am just not sure where to start. Did you first build a frame using 2x4's or 2x2's and then nail or screw the sides on?? I was thinking about building a frame with either 2x4's or 2x2's and grooving the corner peices so that the side and back panels could slide in. I would then have a sliding glass fron composed of 2 pieces of glass with a key locking mechanism. The top would get screwed on after the all sides and glass was in place. Does this make sense to you??

Also, do you think that it is too soon to put him in a tank that size. He is just about too big for his current tank, but i really don't want to buy one now and then have to build one later. It would be much easier just to build a big one now. Do you think it would stress him too much to be in an enclosure that big now. He is a little over 4ft almost 4.5ft.

Well, it might be a little big now and
 

your snake might only make use of one side, but........Yes, I have used a frame type of construction where i could take/knock down the cage by pre-drilling 2 by 4s as the frame and bolted the sides, top, bottom, and back to it. I fact i had wished i did this to a 8' long, 4' tall' and 4' deep cage at my old residents. I had to chain saw the cage apart because we had bult the cage in room and never planned on moving ! :eek: On you idea of sliding glass doors, it would be least expensive to do this. The tracks or sliding doors are not expensive compared to a cabinet door. In fact that's a good idea that i guess the vision cages and the older tub looking Neoshay cages have used. Now for wood: this will be your most expensive material. I use to use 3/4 plywood but one can hardley afford that heavy stuff now to all of the natural disasters that the sheets of plywood is used for. I bet you can get away with 1/2 plywood. My problem on the thickness of the wood used is that i have cages stacked on top of cages for more room. AND I never have a cage on ground level. I use cinder blocks, 5 gallon buckets, what ever unless it's like one of my furniture fixtures then i have a 2 by 4 stand made and stained. Did I forget anything ? ;)

I think you got everything. Just one more question. Do you heat the bottom of the tank in any way. The tank i have now i use a heat pad under one side of the tank just to give that end a little extra ground heat. If you do heat the bottom, how??

I have never has to use bottom
 

heat in a wood cage. Wood is a conductant for heat in a small way. It would probaly be real unsafe to use those tank substrate heaters on wood. now when i raised totoises, my hatchlings did need sub heat in a wood cage. I used one of those piglet heat blankets/plates. Really i don't know why they call them blankets because they are real safe pastic with coils imbedded. The only problem is that you will either have to drill a semi-large hole for the plug to go through the cage or splice the cord for a much smaller hole. I've done both. But I really don't think you will have a problem. There is one other way, provide a very warm basking area by using a spot light bulb. But now I HAVE had snakes break these bulbs but to no damage to the snakes. It's a little hard to get the screw in part out of the fixture when they break any bulb, but a longnose pliers will do it with the electric turned off of course. In the past few years i have had to put all of my snakes in the barn in a room we made and i don't use a room heat type situation. Of course I/m not really hibernating the snakes at this time either. I am using IN CAGE heat only with certain wattage of bulbs hooked into the dimmer > reastat switch. I do have to change from 40 to 60 watt bulbs in the middle of winter up here though. I check the internal temps 2 times a day. When i have to leave town i set the dimmer switch to half way. Yes the snakes might get a little cool but not for that long. Besides, any snake can take a temp in the low 70ties for a short time without harm. In fact when i bred boas I cooled them at mid 70ties. ;)