Commercial Cages

[Joba]

For those of you, like me, who are less than inclined to build some monster cage for a pet tegu, I was wondering if anyone uses or can recommend any commercially built cages. I use Animal Plastics cages for my snakes. I love them; they're lightweight and hold humidity very well. AP's T70 is 8'X3'X2': http://www.apcages.com/home/

There's not a very high lip to hold in the substrate; maybe you could build up the lip, or put a tub inside to hold deeper substrate levels. Thoughts?

 

[Tato]

I've been looking at this. But I'm unsure because I would like for my tegu to be able to dig some. I was thinking maybe with some plaster you could make the lip higher.

 

[Josh]

There's totally got to be a way to increase the depth of the substrate. tubs inside is a good idea, I just think it might be difficult to get them in and out...
You might be able to get away with covering the bottom part of the porthole on the inside with a plastic catch of some kind...?

 

[Joba]

You might be able to get away with covering the bottom part of the porthole on the inside with a plastic catch of some kind...?

That's what I'm thinking. Cover up half of either end's porthole, and then use AP's fitted divider (but for a 12" cage, leaving 12" open above it) to hold the substrate on that end of the cage.

BoaMaster also has an 8 footer. It might be an even better bet for tegu because it looks like it has separate sliders for the top and bottom, so you could fill one end higher with substrate and still access the cage through the top sliders. http://boamaster.com/products/8ft_3_4_plastic-62-3.html
This leads to a secondary question, however: does the climate in which the tegu lives change the need for hibernation and all this substrate? For example, I live in Phoenix, and a guy that I used to hang around with had two tegus, and they just had heat lamps and blankets. Will our hot climate change their need to hibernate, or is it pure, unchangeable instinct?