I need some advice on my degu cage!

[shanibandangle]

Hi everyone, I've had my degus for 7 months now (I say 'my', they actually belong to my 11 year old sister). I have pictures of our current cage below, but I'm not content that it's good enough for the degus. The one we had previously was terrible - it was the standard Pets at Home cage with barely any room, and so I bought this cage since it looked like it had much more space. First things first, I know it's not perfect and I'm always fretting that it isn't good enough or suitable. They have one full layer to run about on, but the higher 2 levels are just platforms (which they chew incessantly) and there will soon be barely any left. These 2 platforms plus the ladder are all made of wood. The cage was actually shown online as having metal platforms rather than wood but this wasn't the case.

I want to somehow turn the platforms into full layers for the degus to run on to give them more floor space but don't know how to go about it. One thing that makes me anxious is one of my degus constantly chewing manically on the bars and pulling them back with her teeth. I don't understand, degutopia says the measurements of the cage are fine and I let them out for a run every single day. They have lots to chew on but they just bury them instead and chew on the bars, platforms, house, etc!

Sorry the pictures aren't great, no natural light at the moment. I really want to give them the best life possible (on an unfortunately tight budget )

[ntg]

Hi shanibandangle, welcome to the forum!

The cage looks quite promising in terms of what you can do, although access looks quite awkward. Could you tell us the dimensions of it please? Unfortunately, degutopias dimensions are a bit out of date and still go off cage volume, whereas we use something called CARA (cumulative available running area) that basically adds up the surface area of the cages horizontal levels as a large amount of height with no added levels is wasted space for degus - they aren't climbing animals.

My first idea would be to add a full level and two half or 3/4 length levels (you want to be able to easily clean each level so you'll need to decide what's best for you. To make the levels, you need to use sheetwood such as plywood or contiboard. B&Q stores often have a free woodcutting services which means you can get them to cut the panels to the right size and reduce the amount of work you need to do. With this method, you also need to add a lip all the way round of kiln dried softwood which acts as sacrificial wood for the degus to stop them from getting at the sheetwood as well as a well for the substrate to limit the amount that gets kicked out. There is a thread in the cages and accessories sub board that explains it better... I'll try and find for you to look at.

[ntg]

Here it is deguworld.proboards.com/thread/17316/cage-materials

[deguconvert]

WOW!! You could do so much with all that space!! I like Saddlers suggestions!

Major oops . . . those were NTG's suggestions. Which I do like! Saddlers makes great suggestions as well! They're both GREAT!! Couldn't continue without them! Stellar folks!

[saddlers]

Don't be too hard on yourself, it is much better than a thickets cage and has a lot of potential. If you introduce another full layer, and some partials in between to make access easy it should be a great cage. Some degus do just seem to enjoy bar biting, so whilst it can be an indicator of stress it can also just be a noisy goo!!

[winic1]

Take a look at this, and look through and read, as there are explanations, instructions, and lots of pictures.

www.deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15977/paradise-critter-nation

[rmazeds]

I know I'm a bit late to this but thought I'd give a couple ideas as well as I have a similar (slightly smaller) sized metal cage...

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/18-x12-EXTRA-WIDE-SHELF-CHINCHILLA-RAT-GUINEA-PIG-CAGE-/300395677244?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Small_Animals&hash=item45f0fa463c I'm not great with wood myself so bought some of these to help with some space.
Also not being a sewer (although I have a sewing machine I have never touched) I just cut out some square shapes including bit so i could tie on and made lots and lots of hammocks.
I have hanging tubes, scramble nets, a fabric shelf which they can nap on. Plus rope bridges are pretty well used as well!! I've even hand sewed fabric hanging tubes that they sleep in!