First baby bin... What do you think?

I am in the process of preparing for my panther eggs to hatch. I still have at least 2.5 months before they hatch so I am in no hurry, but I want to get everything setup for them sooner rather than later. After doing A LOT of research and looking at virtually every option to house the little ones after they hatch, I decided on a simple storage bin setup. Here is a breakdown of how I built it. This is just a test bin and can still be changed and tweaked as needed.

I started by purchasing a clear 56qt and a 28qt storage bin with lids. I cut most of the top of one lid out and replaced it with aluminum window screen. I then did the same with the bottom of the 56qt bin. I attached the screen to the lid and bin using hot glue, I had to rough up the surface of the bin a little so the glue would stick to it.





I then got some simple wood dowels from Home Depot. I decided to get 3 sizes, 1/8", 3/16", and 1/4". I then cut them into several different lengths and hot glued them in larger bin creating many walk ways.



Once the dowels were all in and secure, I started stringing fake fines (wedding garland) throughout the bin until I liked the coverage.



Now I drilled a hole in one side of the bin for a John Guest bulkhead union and attached my DIY misting nozzle to the union (I use the same system on all of my cages).





Now I got some 1" PVC elbows and cut some 1" PVC pipe so it fit just inside the 28qt bin. This holds the larger bin almost 1.5" off the bottom of the small bin. Now I have a completed baby bin with mister and drainage tray. Each bin will house 4-5 baby ambilobe panther chameleons for the first 3 months of their lives.





What do you all think. Any and all suggestions are welcomed. I hope to finalize the design and start construction of the remaining 11 bins ASAP.

The idea overall is solid, but I will offer some suggestions.

1. Rather than gluing the rods to the inside of the tub, build a 'jungle gym' of rods, leaves, and such so that it can be lifted in and out of the tub babies and all. You are gong to need to clean the tub out at least weekly and you will not be able to do so easily like this.

2. I would strongly suggest you not place the mister directly in the tub. The direct mist/spray can be pretty aggressive towards young animals and possibly harm them. A great solution is to the have the mister spray THROUGH the screen on 1/2 the lid creating more of a rain effect.

HTH,

Bobby

Yeah, I agree with sal on the dowels. I just angle one from each of the four corners to reach about half way up. No one wants to see them drop. I also throw in a vine or two with an aquarium branch of sorts. I keep it real simple. Only a couple babies to a bin. They poop a lot as little ones. You have to clean it every two to three days. For misting, I prefer a hand mister for the babies. Control nut . But I understand not everyone can be at home with their 'kids' like some us. Good start. We all have learning curves when it comes to chameleons.

I like the idea of the water drainage. I do agree with the water nozzle not being directly at them.
Over all good job.

Love this post! I was wondering about doing something for the babies before I transition them into my 6 unit nursery cage. I think I will do this and keep babies in here for the first few weeks and then move them according to size after than

Looks good! I don't know anything about raising babies, but the advice already given sounds like it would make it even better!

What are you going to use for uvb and heat source? Curious as I have to start preparing for babies also.....

Lol, I have constructed something similar too except used two smaller bins turned 90 degrees in the larger outer. I am building a 'jungle gym' which can be lifted out with some fake plants attached. That way the pinheads can't crawl right to the edges. I have also used screen on the sides only so the critters don't fall through the bottom screen. I hand mist so excess water is no an issue.

Saldarya said:

The idea overall is solid, but I will offer some suggestions.

1. Rather than gluing the rods to the inside of the tub, build a 'jungle gym' of rods, leaves, and such so that it can be lifted in and out of the tub babies and all. You are gong to need to clean the tub out at least weekly and you will not be able to do so easily like this.

2. I would strongly suggest you not place the mister directly in the tub. The direct mist/spray can be pretty aggressive towards young animals and possibly harm them. A great solution is to the have the mister spray THROUGH the screen on 1/2 the lid creating more of a rain effect.

HTH,

Bobby

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Thanks for the suggestions, I will rework the setup tonight and post more pics. I think that I will keep the misting nozzle in the bin though. I have seen it done this way many times. ferretinmyshoes had hers setup with the mistking nozzle inside the bin and had no issues.

Paul30 said:

What are you going to use for uvb and heat source? Curious as I have to start preparing for babies also.....

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I am going to use this fixture - http://www.aquatraders.com/36-inch-2x39W-T5-Aquarium-Light-Fixture-p/52122p.htm
I will be replacing one of the bulbs with a Reptisun 5.0. Each fixture will cover 2 bins. Since the babies do not need basking above about 80, I am hoping this will put out enough heat for them. If I need more heat, I plan on using cheap clamp lamps from Home Depot with 40 watt bulbs, I should be able to get by with 1 bulb for 2 cages.

Based on suggestions from some of you, here is the redone baby bin. This time I made a jungle gym for them out of 1/4", 3/16", and 1/8" wood dowels. To make it nice and strong I lashed it all together using fishing line and then put a dab of hot glue on each connection to lock it all together. I then wrapped some fake vines in and around the jungle gym. Now it is easily removed from the bin for cleaning.

The only problem I have is that this took me more than 2 hours to complete and I need to make 11 more. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to make this a lot faster?

Children from china. No joking.
I think your just gonna have your work ahead of you.

Nice work. As others have stated a "rack" or freestanding type o jungle gym works fantastic for cleaning. Just pic the structure up and move into a fresh new bin
water in my bins settles in the impressions in each of the corners so i found that a few holes in each corner will drain great and saves a lot of time with the hot glue gun!
last thing that is helpful would be to make sure some leaves/vines are touching the bottom. This will allow the feeder insects to crawl up higher on the structure for feeding.
Good luck and have fun!

I agree with Norcal55, we just drill holes in the corners, drainage works fine, really seems like the screen on the bottom would be harder to clean, we also use deeper totes, so we don't actually have tops on our totes. So the construction process is basically building a removable ChamyGym and drilling holes in the bottom of the tote, we then use the supplied tote lids as the drainage container on the bottom. Simple setup and easy to clean. If you use a industrial shelving rack like one you can get at Home Depot or Lowes you can mount the UVB, heat source, and the misting system detector to it. Regardless, looking good.

The only problem I have is that this took me more than 2 hours to complete and I need to make 11 more. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to make this a lot faster?

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No one said having children would be easy. That's why there is the the tax credit, to make up for them. As for getting your work done, call Reebok or Kathie Lee. They can help you. I keep mine simple. No muss, no fuss. The babies need to be able to find food easily and you need to make sure they are feeding and hydrated. It's about their health, not going all Martha Stewart on 'em.

Lpsouth1978 said:

The only problem I have is that this took me more than 2 hours to complete and I need to make 11 more. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how to make this a lot faster?

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Wood Glue. That lashing had to take some time. Instead, just use wood glue. It will harden stronger and is much easier to do.

I have made some progress on the baby bins and room. I have the plan in place for the bins and will be working on several of them in the coming days. Most of the work has been in building the shelving for the bins. It started as a pretty simple build, but quickly evolved into a much more intricate build. Although, the new design will make it much easier to maintenance and clean the bins.

The shelving is made out of 3/4" PVC and fittings mostly from Formufit. There are a total of 6 shelves, 3 hold 4 baby bins each, the other 3 hold 4 drainage bins each. This allows me to empty the drainage without disturbing the baby bins themselves. I am also able to remove the baby bins without needing to disconnect anything like minsters. I have moved the misting nozzles from inside the bins to above the bins. Here are a couple of pics of one section of the baby wall. Picture 6 of these pictures on one wall, that is the essence of my baby room.

Finished the baby bin stand last night. It took A LOT of PVC cuts to make it work. I also got all of the misting nozzles installed and ran all if the tubing for them, now I am just waiting on the misting system to come off back order.

Tonight I will start building all of the "Jungle Gym's". I figure even if I only complete 1 a day, They should all be complete in about a week and a half. The last thing will be the remainder of the lights. Unfortunately, that will be a pretty good chunk of money, so it will happen fairly slowly.

Here are some more pictures of the complete shelving system and the misting nozzles. Let me know what you all think. All of the bins have lids, I just didn't have them on in these pictures.

looks good

Nicely done!!! I am sure that PVC work was tedious!!

Rango3d said:

looks good

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Thank you!

Saldarya said:

Nicely done!!! I am sure that PVC work was tedious!!

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It was ridiculous! I took something like 200 cuts to get everything done. To make it worse, I don't have a miter or chop saw to do it with so I had to make them all with a ratcheting PVC cutter. Now I have a right forearm like Popeyes.

Here is a question for those of you that have done bins similar to this, did you cut out any of the sides and use screen there to allow for better air flow? It just seems like having the top screen and drilling little holes in the bottom for drainage would not allow for great airflow.