Finished Corn Snake Cage

The cage. It's mostly based on a plan I found here. I used melamine along with a piece of 1 x 4 and two conveniently sized door from ikea. I have the tracks for sliding doors, but since I don't have the money to go get some glass cut right now the ikea doors were a better alternative, and still give me very large openings to work with. I still have to add a heat lamp, though with the room temps this is less of a concern then one would expect. I had an idea for one already, but discovered it isn't going to work and have to try again. I may just cut a hole in the top, cover it with screen and put an outside lamp on it since I'm no longer planning to stack the cages, and that solution would be basically free. I also need to add a side vent, but the one I had was too large for the space, and had gaps just slightly too large as well. I expect I'm going to make it out of wire instead of using something pre-made.

In the spring I'm also going to have to haul the cage outside and silicone all the joints. The corn snake is dry enough I hope he won't do too much damage to the melamine before i seal the edges. That central piece of 1 x 4 also will be painted to protect it from damage as well. The edges aren't perfectly square, but if I build another I'm borrowing a circular saw. A jigsaw isn't great at cutting straight for long distances.

Mind you all the pieces of this cage have been hanging around in different rooms of my house for months. I finally cut the back Tuesday and that led to finishing it. The walls, top and bottom had been together for months sitting in my reptile room taking up space.

And here is the slightly annoyed inhabitant. I need to add more decor and such as this was just what was in his old cage. The footprint is 49 x 24 giving the corns snake about 8 sq ft of space, almost doubling the 4 1/2 sq ft he had previously. Since he's about 5 feet long now, I felt awful keeping him in a 3 foot wide by 18 inch tank. The next snake to be upgraded is my older ball python who is in the same size cage, and is approaching the same length.