Green Tree Python enclosure

Overview

Caging for green tree pythons (chondros) can be expensive. They require some specialized elements that aren’t found in mass manufactured caging products.

Materials

1. Worst – glass or screen. These two materials are used in lots of mass produced animal caging, and therefore the least expensive. However they are also very poor at maintaining heat and humidity. They are not wise choices for housing chondros.
2. Good – wood, MDF, or melamine. These materials have much better insulation properties than glass does, and can be made waterproof enough to maintain good levels of humidity without absorbing the moisture and rotting.
3. Best – plastics. Nothing beats the insulation properties, and all plastics are impervious to moisture. This makes plastic the hands down best material to use for green tree python caging. However, it is the most expensive. Commercially made cages can run several hundred dollars, and generally are expensive to ship due to their size.

Recommendation: home made caging using a combination of materials from 2 or 3.

Heating

Since chondros are arboreal, they spend most of their time perched on branches. And since most of the reptile heating products are made for terrestrial animals, they won’t work for chondros.

1. Good – heat lamps. Both infrared and ceramic types are OK here, and fairly inexpensive costing $30 or less per cage. Several chondro keepers have used either of these products successfully for many years. I find them too bulky and tough to deal with because of the shrouds required to use with them.
2. Best – radiant heat panels. RHPs are more expensive, at around $70-$90 per cage, but they are much better for space concerns, and safer for the animals. Plus their life span is over 10 years. One of the more popular sources for RHPs is .

Home Made Caging

I got an idea from using plastic tubs for hatchlings and yearlings to adapt larger plastic tubs into attractive display caging for adults. This is what I came up with.