The works in progress

Hello everyone, been a while since I've posted on here. My adult panther chameleon is reaching length of 17+ inches so it's time her gets a new cage. Even though his current cage is the iguanarium, it's huge! 48x36x18.







(Older pic)

He is always cruising around every inch of that cage, he just needs more space.
So I've had some good ideas for a DIY cage before but never had the time or patience. But thanks to some cage designs from Seriyu I was finally able to get started. The dimensions are 5x4x2ft. Should be enough space for him.







I'll keep posting more pics as I go along! Thanks for looking!!!

Very cool I'll keep watching for updates

Very nice work!
I wish I wasn't so lazy, I would make one too!!

That screen mesh is kind of large! cricks will be everywhere if you set them loose inside the cage.
You could always cup feed though, but I don't think it's a good idea to cup feed exclusively.

The mesh on the iguanarium is about 1/2" by 3/4" pretty much any feeder I put in their could escape, the new mesh for the custom is 1/2 by 1/2 so the larger feeders would have a hard time escaping. I primarily cup feed..... I try to free range feed when I can I usually end up having to take a out a couple crickets they couldn't find at the end of the night, I created kinda a hybrid between cup and free range feeding. I'll place a cup o crix somewhere in the cage and have a
large stick that goes into the cup on the bottom and comes out and resets on another branch or vine. Some crix can't figure out how to get out and some climb out right away.
Just finished the frame this morning, I just need to sand a little bit, and coat it with polyurethane than start to put the hardware cloth on and work on the bottom/drainage.

Sorry..... Same photo twice.......

Coming along nicely bud. What screen are you going to use? Are you going to have glass in front?

The two sides and the back are going to hardware cloth and the doors will be hardware cloth too. Behind the hardware cloth I'm going to put some kind of shower curtain to help maintain humidity. There is a 1" inch spacing behind the hardware cloth so he won't be tearing up the curtain. Here is the hardware cloth. 17.00$ bucks at home depo should be plenty to make the cage

Finally some updated pics, since I have had some time to work on it




The netting and the shower curtain are stapled in with a heavy duty stapler, I hammered in all the staples that didn't go in all the way, and I'm also going to use aquarium safe sealant over all the staples just to insure he doesn't get a nail caught on one.




The bottom is a sheet of moisture resistant underlayment, with peel and stick tile and than used aquarium safe sealant on bottom edges and anywhere else you don't want water to go. very simple, it probably cost about $14.









It may not be that great if you put it up to a 'cages by design ' cage. But it's probably 1/8th of the cost and will work almost just as good!

Good choice on the plastic mesh. The metal can do a real number on their nose or claws. But I somehow don't think he will be stressed enough to rub his nose.

Finally it's completed. A total of 7 lives plants 3 basking bulbs, and another dual UVB fixture and another mistking nozzle (which are on the way) I think it turned out pretty good for a young lad such as myself making it. Let me know what everyone thinks! I'll be happy to answer any questions














More pics with the doors open on the way!

WOW that cage is amazing !! I am new to this but trying to figure out how to make my own? But you helped thank you. Also looking for experience friends Dgood.

Awesome
I love seeing nice enclosure builds in progress. I should try to build something like that. Thanks for sharing!

This enclosure looks awesome!! Good for you! I'd love to build a large custom enclosure, but I wouldn't know where to start...

Nice job! All that extra space will be MUCH appreciated.

Very nice!!! I usually use vinyl screen on all my custom cages but I may have to check out that hardware cloth on my next build. It looks really good on yours and seems functional.

Thanks everyone for all of your replies! He does seem much more content having all of that space. There is a lot of little things you don't think about when you start building it. You kinda just have to start building a frame and go from that point. More pics coming soon!

cool cage .