# Tegu cage front



## owenislush (Aug 28, 2010)

Basically I'm in the planning stages of building a tegu cage. It's going to be 8ft x 4ft x 4ft.
I have the design down for the main structure of the cage, but I'm struggling on how to go about designing the front of the cage.
options i currently have:

full glass front with sliding doors.
side opening doors.
doors opening upwards
doors opening downwards

problems of each...
sliding doors - substrate getting into the runners making it difficult to slide, also humidity runs down the glass and into the runners and can drip out of the ends and down the front. also going to be very heavy (4ft x 4ft sheets)
side opening doors - they will swing outwards too far as the room is only 7ft wide, so the width of the cage (4ft) plus the length of the door (4ft) is not going to fit properly and cause an obstruction! also the same again of having a 4x4ft pane of glass to open sideways may be too heavy for the hinges
doors opening upwards - not really much of a problem with this apart from the size and how they will be help in the up position when I'm farting about inside the cage
doors opening downwards - they will not be able to open and lie flush against the front of the cage so i wont be able to reach in properly

so from the above I think i'm going to have to have a combination of the above, 3 seperate windows, the middle opening upwards, the 2 outer opening outwards. this way I can have the full front of the cage open for access when I need to.

I'm wanting as much of the front to be glass as possible, which ties in well with not wanting to have 2ft of substrate across the whole cage due to weight/cost to replace. To solve this I will have a small lip at the front and have a thin layer of substrate, then have a bigger lip further back (maybe only stretching half the length of the cage) with a good 2ft of substrate for her to burrow in. (this should also help when finding her as shes only about a foot and abit long so finding her in 2ft of substrate 8ft long by 4ft wide would be tricky so restrciting the places where she can burrow i'll know where she'll be!

I'm not too fussed on the details of the interior as i've got major plans which will be researched to death once i've got the main structure built.
but here are a few of my ideas so far.
gonna do alot of fake rock builds inside of it, not sure if its gonna be a full background covering the whooooole lot as this will be quite extreme in a cage this size! so maybe a few free standing hides and places to climb and bask on providing a few levels due to the height of the cage.
some kind of waterfall/river but due to how hard these seem to keep clean might not be the best idea...
then theres the interior lighting/heating/wiring/humidity/sealing etc etc....

so basically my question is:

What's the best way to privide front access to a large reptile cage (8x4x4ft) and does anyone have any pictures of sketches?

any info on the above mentioned subjects would also help, thanks, Owen.


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## my_shed (Jan 5, 2011)

owenislush said:


> Basically I'm in the planning stages of building a tegu cage. It's going to be 8ft x 4ft x 4ft.
> I have the design down for the main structure of the cage, but I'm struggling on how to go about designing the front of the cage.
> options i currently have:
> 
> ...


I'd go with sliding doors, anything else means timber frames blocking your view. Also I've always found doors to be awkward, opening towards you and easily knocked etc. Another thing is that doors would be roughly 2 and a half foot by 4, with glass, which will need very strong framework, so the frames will be pretty big.

To deal with the weight you could always do four smaller pieces instead of two big bits. 

Just my thoughts, hope this helps

Dave


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## bowdenmx (May 15, 2011)

heres what i went for. 
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/lizards/926329-savannah-monitor-enclosure-build-pics.html
:2thumb:


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## mitsi (Feb 1, 2012)

just do a 2ft opening door on one end, opening down to create a ramp for them to use when bigger and then two sliding glass doors, thats what i did on my 8x4x4 boscs viv and must say it all works a treat.


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## harry136 (Aug 2, 2012)

you could try creating removeable glass windows with a wooden frame that are secured in place by normal dead bolts?


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