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saximus

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Since a lot of people seem to have trouble working out sizes needed to comply with the CoP, I've been thinking about making a spreadsheet for people to use for working it out. It could have a list of species to choose from and give the minimum requirements directly.
Would people use something like that? It would take a couple of days to make so there's no point doing it unless people would see some value in it. If so, any suggestions for what to include would be welcome.
 
Yes! I've read the thread about the new standards and as my brain does NOT speak math lol I'm still not 100% sure I've got it right :? if you could do that I'm sure lots of people would greatly appreciate it, myself included :D
 
I would definitely utilize such a spreadsheet. Once we move to NSW we plan to make enclosures for our snakes, and a future snake we're yet to buy. I think the specifications I've put together comply, some being almost double the 'minimum', but I'd like to know for certain.

Would you be including minimum floor or back wall area/measurement, or both minimum floor and back wall areas/measurements, depending on whether or not the animal is deemed an aboreal/climbing species by the Code of Practice?

Will this resource only include enclosure sizes of snakes, or all of the listed animals? This will be a big undertaking, with the snake species alone. Or barring listing all species, will a formula, or equivalent be shown for people to determine the sizes by themselves? I think this is already listed in the Code of Practice, not absolutely sure though.

Will you be including minimum enclosure sizes for hatchlings of the species, or just adults of said species?

Regardless, a resource that lists minimum sizes as allowed by the Code of Practice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for considering creating one. :)
 
I would definitely utilize such a spreadsheet. Once we move to NSW we plan to make enclosures for our snakes, and a future snake we're yet to buy. I think the specifications I've put together comply, some being almost double the 'minimum', but I'd like to know for certain.

Would you be including minimum floor or back wall area/measurement, or both minimum floor and back wall areas/measurements, depending on whether or not the animal is deemed an aboreal/climbing species by the Code of Practice? That one might be tricky but I'll try to have something that indicates that the measurement can be also a wall for the climbing species.

Will this resource only include enclosure sizes of snakes, or all of the listed animals? This will be a big undertaking, with the snake species alone. Or barring listing all species, will a formula, or equivalent be shown for people to determine the sizes by themselves? I think this is already listed in the Code of Practice, not absolutely sure though. I would plan to have it list all of the species. It's actually not as hard as it might seem because they all end up in just a few major categories so the calculations only need to be done for that. It will just be time consuming at first to enter them all. Depending how easily it can be done, it would probably start with suggested sizes but also allow the person to enter a dimension and have it work out the minimum other dimension to ensure it complies. I may also add a section so that it can be worked out directly on animal size rather than just general species.

Will you be including minimum enclosure sizes for hatchlings of the species, or just adults of said species? Hatchies have a blanket rule for each category (e.g. snakes, lizards etc.) so that can easily be added

Regardless, a resource that lists minimum sizes as allowed by the Code of Practice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for considering creating one. :)

Answers are in red. Thanks for the questions/suggestions.
 
Answers are in red. Thanks for the questions/suggestions.

Excellent idea and community resource saximus. Once up and running, it might even be worth your time submitting it to the relevant department down in NSW. I am sure they are getting heaps of calls in regard to this. This is something they should have done with the release of the new regs. They should implement a web based calculation page atleast.

Props to you and good luck!
 
Great idea! I lost count of the number of buyers I had ask what size enclosure they`ll need when their hatchy is full grown. With the CoP it made it difficult for me to explain to them what they`ll need, with a resource like this I can simply direct them to it, either by sending them the link or suggesting they join the forum ( which I do anyway).
 
This would be great! Definitely would utilise this sort of resource as I am planning to build my own enclosures for my future reptiles
 
That would be a gr8 idea thank you Sax, cos even with Rob (Bart70) belting the information into my head with a 5 iron i still get puzzled by the CoP :) :) ..................Ron
 
I started something like this based specifically around species I will keep. I used a ratio of 1M to 3F (in some cases 2F) to determine a minimum enclosure size basedon the CoP. Essentially the calculation is 190% of the floor space and then I determined what commercially available enclosure sizes would work.

Its easy to do, and will help in the future to make sure you know your enclosure size is sufficient.
 
I thought this already existed on the NSW site? The CoP document is very clear about minimum areas per age and amount of snakes within the enclosure, and goes on to list a table of species and the minimum sizes per species over 18 months old. Or are you talking about listing length, depth and height measurements?
 
Answers are in red. Thanks for the questions/suggestions.
Thank you for the answers, I completely forgot species (or in some cases, subspecies) were sectioned into classes. The list will be a invaluable resource to anyone looking at upgrading, or building their own enclosures.

I thought this already existed on the NSW site? The CoP document is very clear about minimum areas per age and amount of snakes within the enclosure, and goes on to list a table of species and the minimum sizes per species over 18 months old. Or are you talking about listing length, depth and height measurements?

It does list the minimum area, but doesn't give that much information in regards to height, length and depth/width. For example, a class C python (Jungle Carpet) requires a minimum of 0.400m2. That could be an enclosure 0.8m/80cm high and 0.5m/50cm long, but doesn't give an indication as to how deep/wide the enclosure should be. I believe this is where a lot of confusion is coming from.

On second look, it does under section 4.3.1.1, with the depth/width or smallest side being no smaller than 20% of the snakes total length. I should have checked prior to typing this, apologies. Regardless, it doesn't give an indication on what sizes would be suitable to achieve the minimum floor/wall area.
 
Thank you for the answers, I completely forgot species (or in some cases, subspecies) were sectioned into classes. The list will be a invaluable resource to anyone looking at upgrading, or building their own enclosures.



It does list the minimum area, but doesn't give that much information in regards to height, length and depth/width. For example, a class C python (Jungle Carpet) requires a minimum of 0.400m2. That could be an enclosure 0.8m/80cm high and 0.5m/50cm long, but doesn't give an indication as to how deep/wide the enclosure should be. I believe this is where a lot of confusion is coming from.

On second look, it does under section 4.3.1.1, with the depth/width or smallest side being no smaller than 20% of the snakes total length. I should have checked prior to typing this, apologies. Regardless, it doesn't give an indication on what sizes would be suitable to achieve the minimum floor/wall area.

I think it doesn't give specific measurements so there is some flexibility. I plan on building an enclosure for my jungle when it gets bigger, and I want the floor size to be the same as my spotted's enclosure so they stack nicely together. I dunno, I think they have provided sufficient information considering there are numerous variables. I'm quite liking how clear NSW is with everything reptile related, compared to QLD :)
 
I thought this already existed on the NSW site? The CoP document is very clear about minimum areas per age and amount of snakes within the enclosure, and goes on to list a table of species and the minimum sizes per species over 18 months old. Or are you talking about listing length, depth and height measurements?

I'm not talking about listing anything. I'm talking about making a spreadsheet to work out the values for you so all you need to do is choose your species from a drop-down list and it can directly give you the minimum dimensions. If you're happy with going to the CoP document and following the necessary steps to work it out for yourself then great but this would be for people who don't really understand the steps to get to a final answer or for those who are too lazy to :)
 
I'm not talking about listing anything. I'm talking about making a spreadsheet to work out the values for you so all you need to do is choose your species from a drop-down list and it can directly give you the minimum dimensions. If you're happy with going to the CoP document and following the necessary steps to work it out for yourself then great but this would be for people who don't really understand the steps to get to a final answer or for those who are too lazy to :)

Ohhhhh. Now I follow. Apologies, carry on :)
 
It would not be simple to put together in the manner you have explained it but it could be done.....

People are obsessed with 'sizes' when the CoPs in terms of snakes really only have 2 criteria - Minimum area (floor for terrestrial and/or vertical wall from climbing species) and minimum length of a floor dimension (which is multiplied by 5 to give you the max length of the species that can be held within providing the Area meets the requirement).

Rather than a spreadsheet that gives you 'measurements' for an enclosure - One that allows you to input Class, Height, Depth, Width and then tells you if it complies with Area for a specified Class (and how much over/under it is) and the maximum snake length that can be held in it would be a lot easier to put together and would make it easier to for people to understand what can go in the enclosure and how 'close' the the CoPs it is.

The concept that many people have that 'some measurements comply and others don't' does not work with the CoPs due to them being based on Area and not direct measurements - Much of this, I believe, has come from the Appendix or Table in the back with suggested sizing on it making people believe these are 'minimum' sizes.

The concept is a good one though.....and would be good if it allowed people to enter their current enclosure details into it and have it tell them what classes it complies with, and up to what length for those classes. In this respect it should not be too hard to put the formula's into Excel and have it do it.
 
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Thanks for the input Bart. I've actually put something together already that does everything I said it would so it wasn't that complicated at all. Now it just the more tedious part of entering all of the species. When I've finished it, you're welcome to comment on how difficult you think it is to use
 
Thanks for the input Bart. I've actually put something together already that does everything I said it would so it wasn't that complicated at all. Now it just the more tedious part of entering all of the species. When I've finished it, you're welcome to comment on how difficult you think it is to use

All good - Keen to take a look. If I had the time at the moment I would take a crack at putting together a web based one but got a few other projects on the hop at the moment.
 
if you could make one that was a simple " coastals minimum size 1800mmL X 800mmH X600mmD " and then just indicate if the animal is an arboreal species and it can be converted to hight rather than length then id definitely use it and im sure plenty of others would to
 
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