BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hi,
I wanted to see how to build a vision cage for blue tongue skinks. I did some research on vision cages a long time ago. I already have one vision cage for my sub adult skink . I just got a new skink and he is growing really quickly ,so I am asking if anyone has any suggestions on different types of materials. (such as wood or some sort of plastic) Or could you tell me what is the best material to make it out of. I am making the cage for a merauke so if I am not sure if I should use wood because how tropical they are. Any ideas??? Thank you!!

Hi, skinks101.

Vision is actually a brand name of prefabricated cages:
http://visionproducts.us/vp12wp/?page_id=18

When I started keeping reptiles, there were no cages made for reptiles so after being disappointed with aquariums and human heat pads, I went through the whole process of building cages myself. Now there are co many professional companies that make high quality caging.

I know that there are a lot of do-it-yourselfers that will disagree, but after 20-30 years of reptile keeping, I find prefab plastic caging to be superior-even if they may not look as nice. (I personally think that some DO look as nice.)

Another tip for people starting with reptiles, is save up and put your money into your enclosures. You'll get a lot more enjoyment out of an inexpensive animal if you spend more on that enclosure. I wouldn't hesitate to drop $500-$750 on a cage for a $50 animal. (yes, most skinks are more expensive than this. I'm thinking of my boa days.)

Good luck!

I could be wrong but from postings on here aren't already made enclosures dirt cheap up on the states, it depends on how handy you are because you are going to have to look at the enclosure everyday so you don't want a shoddy ghetto looking thing, 2 of my enclosures are made out of Melamine i think there is a few threads floating around in the off topic section regarding building an enclosure.

There have been many threads on building cages, some with step-by-step pictures and even lists of materials; do some searches with word combinations of "tank" "cage" "build" or "building"

Like Aaron said, Vision is a brand of molded plastic cages, well worth the money if you ask me ...not that I have any Visions but I do have several Showcase cages that are very similar.

Good luck with the project!

Thank you everyone for all the help.

You're welcome.

As always, Nick and Sue are dead on:

Prefab PVC cages are dirt cheap. What we have done is purchased one (per skink) and are in the process of "tricking them out." Skinks have special needs and require more humidity and hotter temps than the snakes we used to keep so the basic "straight from the manufacturer" snake cage won't work.

Sue's Vision setups are killer!

Our cages each came with a Radiant Heat Panel, but they weren't strong enough with the ambient temps in our house and were running all the time which removed the humidity from the air-no good for gigas.

So we added a heat mat to help take the pressure off of the RHP, but running them on the same thermostat didn't work. Now we're trying out a double thermostat on one of the cages that runs two individual probes and heat sources. It's working great. We're buying one for the second cage in a couple of weeks.

We're also working on our substrate strategies.

Round 2 of deworming starts Friday.

Our next decision is whether or not to get a Mist King system or if I get to continue to be the "Mist King."

Though we've had lots of reptiles, these are our first BTS so we're still working on our "game."

That's what it's all about though. Someone once said to me that none of these animals asked to come live with us, so it's up to us to do our best to care for them.

I really like how Sue's site has a questionnaire that asks if a potential buyer has access to a vet. Kudos, Merauke Mama!

aaronhouts wrote:whether or not to get a Mist King system or if I get to continue to be the "Mist King"

Love it! I've been a "Mist Queen" myself, almost worked up some Popeye forearms with all the squeezing I was doing...

aaronhouts wrote:none of these animals asked to come live with us, so it's up to us to do our best to care for them.

What an absolutely perfect statement!

aaronhouts wrote:I really like how Sue's site has a questionnaire that asks if a potential buyer has access to a vet. Kudos, Merauke Mama!

Thank you for that. I was considering removing the whole form... wondering if it seemed a bit lame to be asking for info like that... like I'm vetting who gets to go on my special waiting list or something.