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If you can afford two snakes, you can afford two vivs.

Hypancistrus

Hypancistrus

New member
I bought a total of five snakes at today's reptile expo. Ooops. This is what Tara gets for sending me out without supervision.

In an effot to house our new acquisitions, I headed to the local Target and Ikea stores. For $1 a piece at Target, I got Sterilite shoeboxes. I got water bowls that double as hides for $.49 at Ikea. I am not certain how I am going to heat them yet, but I will probably use heat tape. If I had added a $20 T-Rex heat pad to my order at the show, I could have heated two of the shoeboxes, for a grand total of $11.49 per snake in housing costs.

So if you can afford two snakes, you can afford two vivs to house them each seperately....
 
right on! it's true, when housed in sterilites snakes are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP! we have 19 sterilites housing 19 snakes! we used cheap ceramic dishes, and small kitty litter boxes for hides, and newspaper as substrate. it's easy!
 
I was an evil cohabber when G. Bush Sr. was in the White House, and even into the early Clinton era. I'm not saying that the situation was good-- there's never a problem until there's a problem. But I had no problems.

Still can't recommend it...
 
Excellent post, and so true. I once threw a tennis ball through a glass tank in the middle of the night (trying to shoo the cat off of something) and had to go to a convenience store to get temporary housing for my hognose. I got a bin for $2.49 and a little dog dish she could hide under for about $1.
 
Wow, sharing cheap but efficient housing stories. My turn!
My Amel is in a 20 long with locking lid I got used at the closing of my local small pet shop for $25, my anery is in a plastic box I got at a thrift shop for 50 cents with a ceramic dog bowl that has an opening for easy pick up (hide and water bowl!) for $1 clearance at walmart, both my normals are in plastic shoeboxes with ceramic bowls for water boxes were 1.07 each and got the bowls at the thrift shop for 10 cents each, the girl has the top from a container of baby finger food snacks with an opening cut in it so that was technically free, the boy has some odd lid from a guys jewelry box or something that I got free at the thrift shop.

Not bad huh? Of forgot my amel has an Ivy silk plant decoration that cost my 5.60, the most I have spent other than on her cage :) I am having trouble finding heaters in my area and can't shop online til we get our tax return on the H&R Block card in the spring but it doesn't get cold in my house, hottest part of the day its about 78 degrees F, at night about 68 degrees F with some small variation through out the day. Is heat tape best for the plastic boxes? How does it work?
 
we just recently separated two ball pythons that we got as rescues that have lived together for almost 5 years in the same tank. As far as i could tell, they are not and have not been aggressive with eachother, and they are both males. We fed them in another tank one by one, but right now i am glad that they are finally in their own tubs so that we can monitor them better :D
 
Its so nice to see posts that advocate proper methods.
and with an example such as five new snakes at once (wowzers!) way to leave no room for excuses. :p
 
When I went to the Daytona show, I wound up coming home with 18 new snakes (purchases, raffle wins, and gifts). At the show, someone was selling tubs for $1/ea with the ventilation holes already drilled. I bought 20. I already had aspen, so I was good there. For water dishes, I used deli cups that the snakes came in. If they didn't come in a deli cup, I used one of mine. I'm still working on getting all of them yogurt cup or toilet paper roll hides. :)
 
RobbiesCornField said:
I'm still working on getting all of them yogurt cup or toilet paper roll hides. :)
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lol...puttin' on the ritz!

its really amazing when you think about it how the pet accessories industry is all built on how WE look at an animals envrionment. All the animals are interested in is something to poop on, hide under, drink from, and live in.
lol...they dont care what their house LOOKS like as long as they have everything they need.
we'll know that this pet accessory thing is out of control when they start making clothing for snakes like they do for cats and dogs...lol
 
My Turn.. 56qt sterilite at walmart $4
Lg dish/Hide at IKEA $99
Paper Towels 6 rolls $2.99 at Big Lots

Real cheap and holds an Adult Corn
 
5 foot garlands at walmart: $5

Heart-shaped glass bowls: $1

I just switched everyone over to the glass bowls, I love them!
 
Darcpixie said:
5 foot garlands at walmart: $5

Heart-shaped glass bowls: $1

I just switched everyone over to the glass bowls, I love them!
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I'm snake-sitting two Amazons for a friend of mine (both in storage container vivs), and she has a heart-shaped glass bowl in one. I love it and I want to get some more my tanks, especially for my Sunglow since for the first year and a half of his life I call him a her...

In the other she has the plastic dog bowl with an opening at the bottom that someone mentioned earlier. He never comes out from under that thing - he loves it.

My baby corns are in tupperware containers with little glass tealight candle holders for water bowls and paper towels for substrate. They are lined up so that one edge of each container rests on one shared UTH.

24-piece tupperware set: $10
6-pack glass tealight candle holders: $3 (x2)
One UTH: Free (given to me when I bought a baby Thayeri king), reg. $16
Baby corn snakes: 11

(10+3x2+16)/11 = $2.90 per snake (or $1.45 if you consider the UTH was free).
 
Shann415 said:
I'd love to see pics of these setups you guys are making for so cheap!
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I'd love to take pics of some of my storage container setups or the baby tupperware line, but my camera battery charger has been lost for quite some time now.

This is similar to the tupperware set I purchased, though mine has fewer size variations and more larger ones:
0007169142741_215X215.jpg


I have a few of these. They are various prices based on the size. The Amazons are in taller ones and the adult corns are in shorter, longer ones. This one is a 15 qt like the one I have a juvenile ball python in; you can buy 10 for about $32 (so $3.20 each). You can get the lids that just have the simple snap and they're a bit cheaper.
0007314992427_215X215.jpg


I used a wood burner to poke holes throughout the containers. Newspaper or aspen substrate, a simple water bowl, an UTH, and sometimes a hidey spot (some extra newspaper to hide under usually works just fine). Arboreal snakes get something to climb on. And that's it. Though of course, a thermometer and/or humidity gauge wouldn't be a bad idea. I live in an extremely humid area, and the humidy and temp of the house is pretty constant, so I don't have them in all tanks. But they're only like $5 ea. so I really don't have much of an excuse.

I'm all for great looking vivs too, though. I just spent more than I care to say on equipment for the Brazilian Rainbow Boa I just purchased. She's getting a waterfall, a thermostat, cool looking water dishes and decorations - the works. But will she be any more happy than if I gave her the same humidity and heat conditions in a plastic container with cheaper accessories? No. Will her viv be a totally awesome display while simultaneously being entirely functional? Absolutely. Am I going to spend that much on all of my snakes? Absolutely not. The ferrets, yeah, because they're needy little buggers. But not the snakes.
 
I have two twenty longs with locking lids that I have had forever basically... for free! And then I just bought two more on craigslist for $5 each. My two tanks that are set up have UTH's underneath that I purchased for $10 each. Their water dishes work as hides and are simply hollowed out rocks. There are two other hides in each tank, one is a stone and one is half of a coconut ($1 at marsh.. and you get to eat the inside!).
So yeah, I hate it when people say that they can't afford to heat or properly house their snakes. You don't even need a tank. You can use a plastic bin.
 
I have both my current snakes in 20 talls. The corn is just a baby and the garter doesn't even need that much room, but both tanks were free. I have 2 55gallon tanks in my garage that i may or may not use someday (I'm inthe process of moving to a smaller apt, i don't know if they'll fit...). I've got 2 albino garter babies on hold, and garters can be kept together, so until they're big enough to go in with my current garter they're going to be living in a sterilite tub. A small one, like a large sized shoe box.
 
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