I guess because of the size I have been working with I never thought of making it such that one door holds the other closed. Now that a new idea for my dragon cage has crushed my mind I think that swinging doors are the only ones that will look right.

Any opinions on the second question in this thread -- cage size for a young. Why buy a second cage if I know it will only last for less than a year? I see people mention 20 gallon long style fish tanks but I as I see it a thermal gradient and proper UV with a MegaRay would be difficult to do.

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~ Mark

Oops! Missed that!

Yes, there is relevance in that idea. The problems that may arise from that are related to stress and safety.
If you redecorate the enclosure as he grows, adapting it to his size, then you won't have any safety issues because he won't jump from a log several times his height or drown in a "huge" water plate. Nevertheless young Bearded Dragons in large enclosures will often stress if there aren't enough hides because they feel exposed. But adding more hides will just create more places where the crickets can hide from him and you don't want loose crickets in the enclosure at night. Of course you can feed him in a separate box and bypass this problem.

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Wish list: Blue Tongue Skinks and Uruplatus =)

Perfectly said Ricardo!

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MARSHA

:D I'm smiling because I have no idea whats going on!

Thanks =)

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Wish list: Blue Tongue Skinks and Uruplatus =)

The cage I am planning on building will be, 5x3x2 with two little swinging doors to change water and food. Stationary glass in the front and a hinged top with the lights mounted to it. The only thing im not sure about is how much air flow do I need?

mine is 5ft 2ft 3ft and sliding door with the glass easily popped out still means you can easily access all area of the cage

Kilo82, as much as you can get. Ventilation is the last thing you want to sacrifice.

Mark, as for the slide vs swing doors debate, don't forget you can have both. It will be a little more expensive but if you must, you can have it!

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Wish list: Blue Tongue Skinks and Uruplatus =)

I think it also needs to be said that location plays an important role in the debate between sliding versus swinging. In the intance of my ex's bearded cage, she could have opted for swinging doors, because space wasnt a huge issue, but she felt that aesthetically and safety deemed sliding was better.



Photographing the little jerk can be a pain in the butt with the sliding doors, because he always seemed to like to be infront of the one that was closed But aside from that, we both felt that it provided enough access to the enclosure without leaving the entire enclosure vunerable.

That said, my brother and I are going to be redoing his bearded's cage, which currently only has top access.



I can offically say that while having top access is nice, only having top access is a pain in the rear, especially once the enclosure was elevated off of the ground. In his bearded's new enclosure, we purchased a curved piece of glass with frame for the front (similar to a display case at a grovery store) and the entire thing is going to open upwards with the aid of gas-struts (similar to the deck lid on a car). This will provide nearly 100% access to the cage without a frame at the top to make it difficult to maneuver around in.

I'll have to scan the "blue prints" we have drawn up to illustrate what I'm referring to.

But in the case of my iguana's enclosure (I know, not a beardy but bear with me) swinging doors simply weren't an option. Due to the size of the doors, and ammount of access I needed/wanted to the encosure, and various other obstructions, sliding doors were the only choice.

Hence the importance of the planning stage before building anything. There are many considerations to consider before deciding on swinging or sliding.

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Mike
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you." - Mother Teresa