Natural Hoggie Viv Build

[Pendragon]

Hi,

Now that I have my two Hoggies, I thought I would show you how I made their new home.

Now if you are the kind of person that thinks all snakes live in R.U.Bs, then you may want to stop reading now



But for thoughs of you out there that want a bright attractive desert looking, natural viv, then read on

This is the sort of environment I want to recreate.



A mixture of sandy soil with grass, I hope over time that some of the grass I have put in the viv will brake down and become litter on the floor like this.

So the viv;



This is a standard 24x18x21 wood viv, so the first thing to go in was the supports for the false floor.



This was just some bits of wood I had laying around, next I put in the heat cable;



I placed the stat probe about 2" off the floor inside the viv, but I found that the temps on the floor hit 100f befor the stat kicked in to lower the heat. So in the end I drilled another hole in the back left corner of the viv, and pushed the stat probe through, so now the probe is in direct contact with the heat cable, the temps now don't get above 85f.

This was where the stat probe and thermometer probe went down the back, now only the thermo probe goes down here;




Last but not least, the floor, this is just 3 or 4mm plyboard;



I then ran a bead of silicon around the joints.

Next time I will start on the fake rock

Jay

[Patmufc]

looking forward to it - looking good

[erce]

Always trying to come up with something special for my hoggie, so can't wait to see what you come up with!

[thetong6969]

seems nice and i am being constructive but there seems to be no cool and hot end as is normal with most environments
should the heat cable not run from left only or right only?? leaving the opposite cool??
apart from that a nice idea

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by Patmufc

looking forward to it - looking good

Cheers, Keep coming back

Originally Posted by erce

Always trying to come up with something special for my hoggie, so can't wait to see what you come up with!

Glad to hear you're not into the R.U.B look

Originally Posted by thetong6969

seems nice and i am being constructive but there seems to be no cool and hot end as is normal with most environments
should the heat cable not run from left only or right only?? leaving the opposite cool??
apart from that a nice idea

Quite right, to anyone following this thread, if you are going to heat your viv with heatmats or cables, then you will want to only cover about one third of the viv. In this build I have two hides, one is in the top left corner, the other is on the right, about midway down. I would put the mat/cable under the back left corner hide, so the snakes would have the choice of a "hot" hide, and a "cool" hide.

However, I'm heating this viv with lights, the cable is there for night time heat if the temps drop below 60f. But if last year is anything to go by, then this shouldn't happen.

Jay

[ObsessedWithSerpents]

looking great good luck and i will be keeping en eye on this thread

[Pendragon]

Ok, so lets get the backing in

To make the Fake rock I used "Kingspan" insulation foam, this is far easier to sculpt than polystyrene.

So I put one thin board against the back as a "base";



I then got some smaller pieces, and shaped them;







I then stuck these to the piece, that was already there;





Next came the paint, just normal emultion, I wanted to get a colour close to the base colour of the stone;



This is the stone I will be using in the viv, it is like slate, it can be split easily, this will reveal a green coloured stone. It is brown (rust) on the outside, where it has been exposed to the eliments, (if you leave it in water for a couple of weeks, it will rust nicely )

So this is the back painted;







We will get to the covering next time

Jay

[Joshh]

Looks brill i subscribed to the thread soo i can keep track of new pics and stuff your adding ohh and i rated it =]

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by Joshh

Looks brill i subscribed to the thread soo i can keep track of new pics and stuff your adding ohh and i rated it =]

Ahh, I wonded how those stars got there



Cheers

Jay

[Pendragon]

So now to make the backing more rock like, I used epoxy resin to stick the sand to the backing, as it's like concrete when it sets. I used a mixture of bird sand, exo terra red desert sand, and exavator clay. I mixed up four pots of this adding more desert sand and clay in each one, so I had four different colours of sand for texture;



I mixed up 20ml of epoxy at a time, epoxy will dry very fast if kept in the pot you mix it in, but it takes ages to dry when you spread it thin, so get it on the backing quickly .

So I covered one panel with epoxy, then sprinkled on the different coloured sands;




You can see in this pic that the epoxy keeps coming through, if you leave it like this, it will look "wet" when dry, so you have to keep putting more sand on to soak up the damp patches. If I was to do this again, I would only cover the areas I wanted in a particular colour, and just use that colour sand, when this dries, I would then add the next colour. The reason for this is because it's easy to forget what sand colour you put down in an area, so you end up putting the wrong colour sands on the damp patches. You also end up with all your left over sand being mixed up, so you can't put the unused sand back.

Anyway, this is what this panel looked like finished;



And this is the rest;









Next, the vents, I put one each side at the bottom;



I have put fly screen behind these vents now I have seen how small these snakes are.

And I put two at the top back, I am toying with the idea of putting fans up there to suck out the air if the viv gets too hot in the summer;



Next time we will get on with the landscaping

Jay