HOME MADE ENCLOSURES

So I will  be posting three different blogs in regards to all my enclosures. This one is on enclosures that I have made myself the second will be on enclosure I had professionally made and the last one will be on Sassy's room and what I have done with that and pans for the room in the future.


So for this post I will start off by discussing some options when it comes to homemade enclosure. There are two types.

1. Made from scratch
2. Transforming furniture

If you are really handy with tools or you need an enclosure so large that you cannot find a suitable cabinet, wardrobe or hutch you may chose option one. This allows you to completely design your enclosure to the exact size and theme that you would like and that would fit your house the best. These enclosure can look amazing and can be very unique but can cost a lot depending on the size and material you choose to use as well as how much detail you put into it.
The above enclosure is one my boyfriend, my dad and I made a couple years back. It housed our savannah monitor until he outgrew it. This could easily be used for a baby iguana when it's standing up like in the second photo. This enclosure was made with good and thick plywood which can get pricey but it wasn't that big so one sheet would most likely would have done it. We got lucky and had enough laying around we didn't need to buy any more. This is a very basic but good structure for a baby iguana or chameleon etc. If the materials where bought the entire enclosure may have only cost about $60 for everything but in regards to a green iguana, it wouldn't last them that long.

 

The above enclosure is Pip's my smallest iguana. I only paid $20 for this TV cabinet, its a very heavy and sturdy piece of furniture, the Plexiglas was another $25 and the plywood I used to cover in the back I had laying around. So this enclosure also didn't cost me much either. This enclosure can be made bigger by removing the shelf and extending it all the way to the bottom, I will do this once he gets a bit bigger. TV cabinets can make great enclosures with very little work. I do not have any eight domes in this enclosure but I will explain more about that in my next blog.

 

 

This enclosure used to house both Pip and Molly when I first got them. We actually already had this wardrobe, I believe we only paid $40 for it back before we had Molly or Pip. When we moved to a bigger place we no longer needed it so I transformed it into a enclosure for my axanthics. I took out the middle divider and dressed the inside up to work for them. Shortly after I got them I put the divider back in so that there so that Pip and Molly both had a half. Once they outgrew it I then gave Pip the previous enclosure and took the divider out and Molly got this entire wardrobe. This enclosure has been altered so much that I will not be keeping it. I was planning on upgrading her to a bigger one as she has outgrown this one. However with the recent events of my basement flood and needing renovated it will be a little bit before she gets her new enclosure. The most expensive part for this enclosure was the Plexiglas.

 

Wardrobe enclosures are one of my favourites as they give you so much room to work with a sturdy frame.

The last one I want to show is my savannah monitor enclosure. This one my boyfriend and I made very fast and could definitely have been made better. It was something we needed to put together quickly for him.



 

 

This enclosure is a 6x4x3. The way it is designed is so you can take he top off of the bottom to make it lighter to move and able to fit through a door. As some of you may know my savannah monitor Louie has MBD that has effected his legs. This enclosure does not suit him so he will be getting a new one built that fits him better. This one will then be stood up on its end to be 6ft tall and will be Billy's new enclosure, which means Molly will get Billy's current one as her upgrade. When the time comes that I do that switch I will show that transformation on the enclosure. This enclosure in total didn't cost more than $100 and is a very simply design that can work for many different species. (I took this photo today, so that's why the flooring is being torn up because of the flood we had.)

 

 

 

So those are all the enclosure I have that we built ourselves. These are cheap and easy to build with basic power too skills.

 

 

Lastly you may have noticed that in Pip's enclosure has no domes in it. When ever I upgrade an enclosure I take the domes out and replace them with an actual light fixture. I will discuss this more with details of how to install them with my next blog post about the professionally made enclosures.

 

 

If you would like help designing or creating an enclosure you are free to contact me via Facebook or instagram for ideas and support.

 

Robin.

Ontario Iguanas