Drastic plastic vs other Ronne cage?

[Kevin_Stoltz]

What is the diffrence besides price?

[The_Boaphile]

The Drastic Plastic cages are your basic plastic box built with all the same materials as the "classic line" but lacking the built in 1/2" recess under the cage. This 1/2"recess gives you a natural place to insert a heating pad or pig blanket etc...

[Kevin_Stoltz]

Can you still stack the drastic plastic as you would the classic line? Also can you still run flex tape between them?

[The_Boaphile]

Absolutely! Stack them 8' high or higher if you like!!!

[Kevin_Stoltz]

Thanks Jeff...Are there any dis advantages of the drastic plastic?

[surfimp]

The only thing I'd say is this...from what I've read and heard, you should give Flexwatt heat tape mounted to the bottom of a cage a 1/2" air space below it in order for air to circulate...something to do with making sure it doesn't overheat, as a safety margin. I suppose you could just rig up some sort of spacer inbetween the Drastic Plastic cages for this, or you could just go with the "Classic" line and not worry about it (since they've already got the 1/2" gap built in).

[Linda]

OK, so there's different ways to work around the missing 1/2 inch air space. What I want to know is....... what is the best or recommend way to properly heat these cages? I know you'll need a helix or something to control the temps, but would side heat or belly heat be best? Right now my hubby is basically sold on the Drastic Plastic, but he keeps asking me questions I can't answer. LOL. After reading the above post I told him we can do it either way. Then he comes back with, "which way is the best way?" I came back with the expected, "I don't know". LOL. So which way is best?
Thanks,
Linda :D

[Kevin_Stoltz]

Linda...I feel the same way...what do i need to look out for with the drastic plastic...and is having the 1/2 inch lip that big of a deal? :-/I just love that Jeff's cages are so light and the colors.... :oMy head has been hurting just thinking of which i should purchase... cwm25.gif.

[surfimp]

Well, I'm no expert on setting up either style of Jeff's cages in a rack style, so I'm probably not the most qualified person you could hope for in that respect.

However, the universal consensus that I've seen expressed regarding proper spacing for Flexwatt is to leave at least a 1/2" airspace gap between the back of the Flexwatt and the surface upon which the cage is resting. Take that recommendation with a grain of salt; I make no warranty expressed or implied that this setup is safe in any way.

Also, I dug up this link, it's to the manufacturer of Flexwatt, perhaps it will be useful:

http://www.calorique.com/

Good luck!

[Kevin_Stoltz]

Thanks Steve Ill keep that in mind.....