All sorts of things have led me to this point. RV's burrow. My experience with my tegus and Bert Langerwerf. Several presentations at the TTPG conference last month. My blackthroat monitors. Daisy's pen and my little prototype of this.
This design will allow my reptiles to get under ground and avoid the temperature extremes on the surface and live in a more "natural" way. I'm putting GFI plugs inside each box, so that I can add some heat, if I see a need for it. The idea is to give burrowing species a chance to be safely underground, but still allow me relatively easy access to them on a daily basis. This design eliminates the possibility of flooding or collapse, but yet they are still sleeping on dirt, underground. Both lids will have 1" thick, foil backed insulation. The boxes will be 4x4' and 2' tall with roughly 12" of dirt on top of them. Wood just doesn't rot around here, and I know how to work with it (as opposed to masonry), so that's why I chose it for this application.
This design will allow my reptiles to get under ground and avoid the temperature extremes on the surface and live in a more "natural" way. I'm putting GFI plugs inside each box, so that I can add some heat, if I see a need for it. The idea is to give burrowing species a chance to be safely underground, but still allow me relatively easy access to them on a daily basis. This design eliminates the possibility of flooding or collapse, but yet they are still sleeping on dirt, underground. Both lids will have 1" thick, foil backed insulation. The boxes will be 4x4' and 2' tall with roughly 12" of dirt on top of them. Wood just doesn't rot around here, and I know how to work with it (as opposed to masonry), so that's why I chose it for this application.