Building Vs. Buying an Enclosure
I’ve been starting research on getting a Red Tailed Boa and one of the main things I see is ensuring the enclosure is big enough. From my research I’ve seen they like to climb and you need an enclosure that’s at least the length of the snake. Being as the females (at least from what I’ve seen research wise) when well kept can get upwards of 8-10 feet, I’ve been trying to find enclosures online that check all the box’s. But as one might expect, finding at 10 ft long enclosure that’s taller than 2 feet has been difficult. I’ve also read that some people have built their own enclosure.
This leads me to my main question, is it better to build or buy an enclosure?
As I said, I’ve looked at buying online, but trying to find a 10 foot enclosure that’s taller than 2 feet is hard (and expensive). I’m a pretty handy person and so I have no doubts I could build one. But I also want to make sure I make it out of the correct materials and I don’t even know where to start researching that. Overall I want whatever is best for the snake in the long run, expensive or not. I just want opinions of people who has either boughten or built an enclosure for their larger snakes and what has worked the best for them.
Extra: This isn’t related to the question at all, again I’m asking for some humble opinions of any large snake owners. I haven’t fully settled on exactly what snake I want, but I’m leaning heavily towards a female red tail. I’ve never personally owned a snake, but my brother has quite a few and I absolutely love helping him take care of them. I help around enough that I feel completely comfortable handling and reading their moods. His snake and lizards are all on the smaller side comparatively speaking (hog noses, bearded dragons, leopard geckos, etc;) because he doesn’t like feeding anything larger than pinkies. I have always wanted a big ol’ snake and I’m not squeamish when it comes to feeding rats. My only concern is I’ve read that with larger snakes, you don’t want to handle them alone for safety reasons. Which is a problem because I’m single af. I have no fears that I wouldn’t be able to physically lift the snake, but I was wondering if it truly is an issue to handle large adult snakes alone.