cage calculator project - stage 2

[fred]

For background on the project:
deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Cage&action=display&thread=8328

For stage 1 of the project:
deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Cage&action=display&thread=8330


Hi all, time to determine the recommended minimum values for individual cage dimensions. Just to remind everyone, this is where we wanted the calculator to have more flexibility (the Swiss and Germans ones reject great cages if one dimension falls short by just one cm). Using CARA as the basis of the calculations means that if one dimension is a bit on the short side, the minimum CARA can only be achieved if another dimension is extended accordingly. Nevertheless, we should consider to also have absolute minimum values which should not be undercut.

Length, depth and surface area of the cage.
I would suggest to have recommended and absolute minimum values for length and surface area of the cage (it doesn't seem necessary to have minimum values for depth if we have one for surface area). The recommended minimum values should probably be based on the UK, German and Austrian animal welfare recommendations, which are 1 m for length and 5,000 or 6,000 square cm for surface area. From earlier threads on the forum and cages presented here it is obvious that members have different views on the relative importance of length and height. It would therefore be good if many of you contributed your views on this.

Height (for cage and/or individual levels).
I am wondering whether this needs to be incorporated into the calculator or whether it is sufficient to mention it on the page. The RSPCA recommends a height of 60 cm for a two full levels, but is there any reason - other than practical - why all of the CARA could not be at a single level? Also for practical reasons, I don't see that the height of individual levels is likely to be too small (wheels, nest boxes, toys etc have to go somewhere). These are just my initial thoughts on this and I am now looking forward to yours.

[woodchip]

I think a minimum width (or length if you want) should be 90cm, with a minimum floor surface area of 4000cm2. That would mean the smallest (recommended) cage size would be 3ft by 18inches. Then you still have the minimum CARA of 11000cm2 for 2 goos.

I think there should be a tolerance of 10cm on length, but if that's the case the CARA should increase so more full levels are recommended.

[fred]

Wow, that has been a rather disappointing feedback so far (thanks woodchip for the one exception ). I really would like to take into account the views expressed by the community. To move this forward, here are my suggestions.

Recommended minimum length 1ength 100 cm. This is suggested by three animal welfare organisation and also by the two German boards www.degus-online.de and www.deguboard.de. Recommended minimum floor surface area 5000 square cm (values suggested by welfare organisations and boards range from 4000 to 6000).

To incorporate flexibility how the minimum CARA can be achieved, I suggest two suboptimal levels:
1) length 85 cm / area 4250 square cm; the calculator will suggest to try to optimise running space.
2) length 70 cm / area 3500 square cm; the calculator will, in addition, suggest that running space should be continuous and that an extension on ground level should be considered.

Recommended minimum height 60 cm; the calculator will show a warning if for cages with three or more levels the average level height is less than 25 cm.

All this can be changed but I need your comments and suggestions!! Please!

[deguconvert]

I think I would rather see it at 6000 square cm. That way there is a little more room for smallers cages . . . say cages that are only 5000 squard cm . . . although you are probably wondering how that works out in my mind. LOL! Don't ask, I've a foggy brain today. I'd sort of like to see the minimum height be closer to 75 cm. But, I don't know what that does for the CARA. I think I'm too fuzzy to make it work in my brain today. How do these affect things, Fred?

[fred]

Thanks deguconvert. If we used both the values you suggest, we would actually go beyond the RSCPA suggestions. While obviously the larger the better, I think it would be good to stick with a CARA that can be achieved within the RSCPCA parameters. Interestingly, to achieve a CARA of 12000, at least one of the values suggested by you would have to be met. If a cage has an area of less than 6000, it needs to have three levels (including the floor) and the minimum height for this arrangement would be 75 cm.

I have to admit that my considerations are a bit UK-centric. Whatever the final details, there will be an awful lot of people in this country who will use the calculator only to find their cage either “suboptimal” or even outright unsuitable. The majority of these degu owners will have come into this situation with the best intention but the worst of advice. As has been said before, the cage recommendations by degutopia – THE degu resource in English - are inexplicably out of date and out of touch. Pets at Homes has been marketing the Thickets cage as THE degu cage, and even those who haven't bought this cage may have considered it a standard. The majority of the well known John Hopewell cages, which are also recommended by degutopia, have floor areas 2800 and 4200 square cm, giving the impression that cages of that size are suitable. So it's easy to see how many owners here ended up with the wrong cage.

This is something which I believe we should take into account at least for a transitory period. But where to draw the line?

[deguconvert]

Yeah . . . I have been thinking along the say lines, I have to say. I also admit to looking at the John Hopewell cages and wondering about the dimensions of his cages and thinking hmmm seems kind of small . . . I won't say more because I do not wish to cause offense. Many truly adore their JH cages, and I don't blame them. They are beautifully made!! I just have different thoughts than what I started out with nearly four years ago. I wonder what JH would think of our discussions?

I wonder where the right place to draw the line is. It's a difficult question as there are SO many directions one could go with it. I wish there were a way to make some diagrams to show the different aspects . . . I only have a Microsoft paint program, and believe me, it is VERY limited. LOL! Otherwise I would try and put something together myself. OH WELL!! I'm going to give this more thought!

[moletteuk]

Sorry I haven't commented on this before, my brain has been occupied with other things the last few weeks.

I'm a bit confused, I thought we were going to aim higher, around the 10 to 12k cm2?

Can we recap a few thing please? Are nearly all other places recommending 100 x 60cm which is 6000cm2? I thought the german sites were recommending more? I thought we all thought that that plan area for the cage was about right but that you need two full shelves (or a combination) so that the CARA was double that? The pets at home thickets cage is 92x47cm I think, which is 4300cm2 just counting the floor, if that helps people get their head around the types of sizes we are talking about.

I think the calculator should reflect what most of us would recommend on a personal level, and try to promote much better cages, rather than being gentle with people who bought a cage that is much too small, that's my personal view anyway, sorry if I've forgotton too much of what we discussed before. My 3 goos have CARA of almost 20,000, and if someone asked me my honest personal opinion of what size cage they should buy or make, I wouldn't say any less than about 14000cm2. I'm quite uncomfortable about actively recommending less than 10,000cm2.

[fred]

This has been a misunderstanding. Minimum CARA will be 12,000cm2. There will a grace margin of 11,00cm2 only for those who already have their cage (users will be asked to tick a box whether they already have the cage or plan to buy/build one; advice given will be slightly different in the two situations).

Personally I agree with you that this will be very much at the lower end and would recommend to go for larger cages (14,000cm2 would seem much better to me). However, I thought it more important to aim for a consensus and taking people with us.

The discussion we had about 50,00 or 60,000 concerned only CARA at ground level, i.e. length x depth. Here the suggestion is to allow more flexibility for those who already have a cage. For example if we were stricter, almost all of the John Hopewell cages (and many others) would have to be considered unsuitable for keeping degus.

I hope it will be a reasonable compromise between promoting much better cages and being gentle with people who bought a cage that is moderately too small.

[moletteuk]

Oh right, sorry about that, Fred, thanks for clearing it up

[fred]

Many thanks to those who have responded by posts or PMS. I will briefly present what has come out of the discussions and then move on to writing the script.

The calculator will contain two buttons to chose from, existing cage or planned cage. Flexibility will be restricted for those who already have a cage. This feature should be removed in a couple of years when - hopefully - people are more aware that degus need large cages.

Minimum CARA will be 12,000cm2. For existing cages between 11,000cm2 and 12,000cm2 there will be advice to optimise running space and/or consider an extension. Cages below 11,000cm2 will be considered too small for degus. These values are for a pair of degus, for each additional one CARA needs to be increased by 2,500cm2.

The recommended length of the cage will be 100cm, the recommended area at ground level will be 50,000cm2. For planned cages, 85cm / 42,500cm2 will be acceptable but it will be stated that this falls slightly short of the recommended measurements. Below these measurements, planned cages will be considered to be too short / have too small an area.

For existing cages there will be no lower limits for length / area as long as CARA is at least 11,000cm2. However, the importance to have the running space as continuous as possible will be stressed and an extension recommended.

The calculator will give results at three levels: standard 12,000cm2, star 15,000cm2, and superstar 18,000cm.

OK guys, last chance for comments and alternative proposals...

[moletteuk]

that sounds fantastic to me

it occurs to me that a possible extension to this could be playpen recommendations.

[NightwishRaven999]

Jul 15, 2011 20:29:01 GMT @fred said:

The calculator will contain two buttons to chose from, existing cage or planned cage. Flexibility will be restricted for those who already have a cage. This feature should be removed in a couple of years when - hopefully - people are more aware that degus need large cages.


The recommended length of the cage will be 100cm, the recommended area at ground level will be 50,000cm2. For planned cages, 85cm / 42,500cm2 will be acceptable but it will be stated that this falls slightly short of the recommended measurements. Below these measurements, planned cages will be considered to be too short / have too small an area.

For existing cages there will be no lower limits for length / area as long as CARA is at least 11,000cm2. However, the importance to have the running space as continuous as possible will be stressed and an extension recommended.

The calculator will give results at three levels: standard 12,000cm2, star 15,000cm2, and superstar 18,000cm.

OK guys, last chance for comments and alternative proposals...

Your idea of having two options, one for cages that are already built and and one for those that are not yet built, is great. I would would never have come up with such an idea.

Recommended length of 100 cm is perfect, and 85 cm is acceptable, even though is fall short of the recommended length.
This is still a lot larger than most store bought cages, so it is a big step in the right direction.
At the same time, these seemingly more reasonable figures, should incite more people to undertake the cage building project.

Most people who build a degu cage, often end up building a second and eventually a third cage...each time making it bigger than the previous and improving the design.

In short, those who decide to build a cage that is 85-90 cm in length instead of the recommended 100 cms are still going in the right direction. Many will most likely decide to build larger cages (over 100 cms in length) later on, seeing that their degus enjoy the added running space and use it to the full.


The flexibility and reasonable nature of your calculator will be an asset in our quest to promote DIY cages.

I am sorry that you could not count on me much as far as input goes. I have not been as active on the forum as I would like to be.

But I promise I will do everything I can to help promote your calculator on degu websites, on animal forums and on Youtube.
Promotion or 'passive advertising' will help the cage calculator get a good number of views every week.

To relate my experience with the OctodonsDegus website...
It took several months of me promoting the website to get a good number of views per day. After a few months however, other people started promoting the website and now when you search for 'degus cage' in the Google.com browser, the website appears on the first search page. At this point, the amount of incoming traffic and views are increasing without any further advertising.


Once you are comfortable with publishing your cage calculator, let us know so we can help you promote it and advertise in on other websites. Our goal should be to make your calculator the most widely used one in the english speaking community.

[fred]

Jul 16, 2011 19:49:36 GMT moletteuk said:

that sounds fantastic to me

Thanks molette. I would have loved to go a bit further but in terms of compromise this is probably the best we can do at the moment.

it occurs to me that a possible extension to this could be playpen recommendations.

That's a very intersting idea. Playpens are a great way for owners to experience their degus in motion and make them want to go for a bigger cage. I will give it some serious thoughts how to address this in the context of the calculator.

[fred]

Thanks NightwishRaven, I appreciate you consider it a reasonable compromise. I didn't find it easy to set the values. I have had the advantage that my only degu experience is with them thriving in a 140cm long cage. Viewed from a different angle, this may have been a disadvantage in the discussion as I am simply lacking the imagination to picture my girls in a much shorter cage.

I very much agree with your view that cages falling a bit short of the recommended values can still be a good starting point for later building larger cages or extending existing ones. With the minimum length of 85cm and ground area of 42,500cm2 I had my mind very much on those who are not experienced in DIY and want to start off with converting a cabinet, wardrobe or vivarium. A cage with a CARA of 12,000 should give the owner a better idea of their degus needs. Smaller cages are not just an issue of the degus missing out, it's also about their owners missing out.

I intend to also make a German version of the calculator (without the special allowance for existing cages). I think that German degu owners will appreciate a degree of reasonable flexibility, and it should help to get the calculator web page faster up the Google rankings.

[moletteuk]

Where I was coming from with the playpen was thinking about mentioning that you could add a note for cages that are on the edge of being too small saying to give extra time out of the cage, but I do wonder if people kid themselves on with this as an excuse that sounds OK but rarely actually happens.

And also our playpen has become an integral part of our degus' space. I just open the cage door and they have access to another 4m2 or so that is completely degu safe. I started off giving them an hour or so twice a day, but now that I've sorted out all the weak spots, the cage door stays open from when I get up to when I go to bed, if I am in all day.

I get the impression lots of people struggle a bit with out of cage playtime, I know I have along the way - it's quite difficult to make everything safe and cleanable, I spent hours yesterday scrubbing floor tiles and grout so I could put grout sealer on, so that the floor was more easily cleanable.