Juvenile Cage Building Tutorial

There are several ways to set up enclosures to raise young melleri. This is the one that worked for me in the past. It incorporates the low temperatures, high humidity, springy cage floor, and climbing space that contributes to successful melleri raising. My personal method is to raise clutches communally until puberty (two years of age).

 Supplies:

 1 Reptarium 260-gallon cage, do not use SofTray liner
1 48" ZooMed ReptiSun 5.0 linear fluorescent bulb, also packaged as ZooMed Iguana 5.0
1 48" fluorescent fixture, no hood needed
2 dome lamp fixtures
2 ZooMed ReptiBulb 50watt heat bulbs
2 20-30" tall Schefflera plants
1 roll of 6mil clear plastic sheeting (this will use one-quarter or less of the roll)
10+ clean, natural perches, 1/8" to 1/2" diameters
1 mist system pump, hose, 2 fine mist nozzles
1 18-gallon plastic bin with lid for mist system reservoir
1 5-gallon bucket to catch waste water
many cable ties
1 pair of nippers
scissors
duct tape
metal measuring tape
ordinary desktop stapler
PVC cutter (see Indoor Cage Tutorial)
fine 24-gauge aluminum wire
Springfield digital humidity and temperature gauge
1 evaporative ("cool mist" or "invisible mist") humidifier
1 ultrasonic humidifier
PVC pieces that fit the ultrasonic humidifier output

 The first thing I did was select the cage site based on temperature. I set a digital thermometer in the site, at cage height, for a couple days before building the cage, to assess if it would be safe for raising neonates and juveniles. They need temperatures to stay low and fairly consistent until they reach about 100 grams, see the Raising Juveniles article. This gauge has max and min features, so you can check the highs and lows recorded since the last program clear. You'll never have to wonder how cold it gets at night, the gauge tells you. This cage is halfway under a ceiling A/C vent. The humidity inside the assembled cage doesn't fall below 60%, even with the A/C blowing down on it.

Next, I selected a table on casters to help support the cage as a horizontal. This example needed to be covered with plastic because it had a porous surface. Next, I laid out the amount of 6mil plastic needed to get the Reptarium "diapered" in the configuration desired. The Reptarium mesh was run through the laundry (washing machine only) on cold gentle cycle with 1/4 cup of Woolite, then rinsed three times. This was placed in a clean bag until needed, to keep it sanitary and moist. The Reptarium PVC parts were individually wiped down to remove the fine plastic debris and factory dirt. This is a necessary step, or else the debris could irritate the eyes of chameleons. Neonates may even mistake some of it for prey and ingest it, which could cause health issues. This photo shows the debris from just one swipe on one of the many PVC pieces of the cage.

 Have the PVC cutters handy, just in case you get an incorrectly packed Reptarium. This one came missing 4 short pieces, but with 5 superfluous long pieces. After you are sure it is clean and has all the needed PVC, assemble the cage frame (no tools required). Ease the still-wet mesh over the frame. Dry mesh is much harder to work. Zip the mesh closed, as it will shrink as it dries on the frame.

 The Reptarium was set in place, on top of the 6mil plastic sheet, and risers were measured and placed under the corners. This example has one cage end resting on a countertop instead of risers, but the other end and the plants are on recycled/repurposed plaster bats and molds. These are banded together for stability. You can use any similarly dense, strong objects to do the job. The point of using risers is to create airspace between the hard tabletop and the cage mesh bottom, so any falling melleri juveniles will bounce safely on the mesh trampoline. More photos of this follow.

 The Reptarium comes with plastic half-sleeves that snap onto the frame for holding back cords, etc. These are handy for attaching the 6mil plastic along the back wall and either one side or two partial-sides on the short ends. No need to have the cage top covered, just overlap the back wall top frame edge by about 4" for the sleeve-snaps. Determine where you want to set the drainage catch bucket, and orient the slope of the plastic sheeting to that low point. Next, fold or "diaper" the cage sides and bottom to strategically hold in waste water and nozzle spray. For each fold, secure by first placing a strip of duct tape overlapping the entire join, then staple through a couple times. Do not staple or puncture below the planned water line. To secure the front portion of the diaper from sagging, you can open the Reptarium and bunch up the door mesh into the stapler's gap (away from the staple end), and staple the duct tape joins to the mesh itself. I suggest adding another piece of tape to the mesh itself, for extra protection against mesh wear at the point of attachment. Do not poke the drainage hole yet! You'll want to run the mist system a bit and allow waste water to collect, to show you the absolute lowest drainage point in the plastic.

 Whereever you want the plant pots to rest, place risers of appropriate diameter between the table and the cage diaper. To protect the diaper from scrapes and holes from the plant pot sliding across the dense riser, you can set a piece of rubberized shelf liner, foam, etc. as the top portion of the riser. To review, the order from the bottom up is table-risers-foam-diaper-mesh-plant pot:

 I edited my original plan as I went along, and I will share my reasons in the process. Originally, I planned for three full Schefflera plants in the cage. Then I remembered how open the middle feeding/basking area was in the large cage for my 2005 CBs. I decided to not add the middle plant, and removed the middle riser. I needed light to do the next steps, so I placed the 48" UVB 5.0 light directly on top of the mesh ceiling. It was secured to the mesh with the fine wire.

Since I was planning for fewer juveniles than I had in 2005, I decided to only use two basking hotspots instead of three for a cage this size. I have a theory that the larger the span of the heat lamp hood, and the lower the wattage of the bulb, the lower the risk of heat burns. Thus, the larger lamp hood is 5" above the mesh, while the smaller hood is suspended from the ceiling for a 10" distance to mesh. Both hoods contain one 50watt basking bulb.

Now that I know where they will be basking, it's time to add the furniture. I gathered a ton of tiny to mid-size long, straight branches from my garden, and scrubbed them with a stiff brush and antibacterial soap. After rinsing, I dowsed them with a strong bleach solution and rinsed again. The branches all came from non-toxic trees and woody "weeds". In the past, I noticed very young melleri seemed to get a lot of enjoyment weaving themselves in these long, woody weeds, placed horizontally and high in the cage. As they matured, they would break down the weeds and start using the thicker, stronger tree branch highways. The animals were editing their cage furnishings with their own traffic habits, and it saved them the stress of having me in there attaching adolescent-sized perches after a month or two. This way, they naturally work down to those big-kid branches as they grow. The perches are lashed together and to the cage frame with cable ties, and small branches are attached to mesh with the wire, with twists turned well under or outside the mesh.

Next, I installed the mist system and two nozzles, one at each basking hotspot. The ultrasonic was fogging the floor, so I tried some PVC to direct it higher in the cage. I wasn't happy with the two humidifiers being so close together, and the fog was still not close enough to the anticipated traffic areas.

I took more white PVC and made the ultrasonic fog arch over the cage ceiling. This still wasn't the solution, because the fog stayed on top of the cage mesh. I modified a plastic cup to collect and direct the fog down through the mesh near the opposite end of the cage. This end has a full plastic diaper wall, which keeps the fog in.

The cage shown in use, with feeding stations placed up high for the juveniles.

Ideally, the cage will give them as many gradient options as the adult cages, but tailored to the lower temperature needs of juveniles. Using numerous perches, more than you'd expect to need, reduces competition for basking and roosting spots. Good luck with your new juveniles!