Cage Heater

[moletteuk]

I've been meaning to try to fit in a cage heater for ages, our house gets so cold in the winter, and they love the heat pad, but I find the heat pad makes them just sit on it for hours and not want to move because the heat is in such a small place.

Last year I fitted it in the pen, but it didn't really make any impact in an open space and then I wanted to put the big wheel in its place, so it was removed. So a couple of weeks ago I found a spot in the cage that I hoped they couldn't reach.




The vertical white thing is an electric tubular heater, it's about 50w, so pretty cheap to run, just like an old light bulb. It's similar to the smallest of these www.toolstation.com/shop/p32265

The goos found the warmth within seconds. They were leaning out towards is from shelf two to investigate, but gave up after a couple of minutes when they realised they couldn't reach. The cable goes straight out of the side of the cage, it's just the ceramic tube and plasic brackets that are open to the cage. Any metal things near it get quite hot, so it is probably best positioned out of reach because if you protected it with metal mesh, the mesh would get very hot.

Here they are enjoying it:









Sorry the pics aren't very good through the glass.


I'm really pleased with it and the goos even more so!

[deguconvert]

ROFL!! I LOVE IT!! Clearly they are very approving and appreciative of it. Can you tell if it increases the temp throughout the cage, or primarily in the spot they are cuddled up? I suspect that is the warmest location at any rate. Your pictures are great!

[saddlers]

They certainly seem to have took a shine to that

[moletteuk]

They've chomped the shelf edging right down in that corner in their efforts to get even nearer the heat now!

It is definitely much warmer immediately above the heater but I think it has warmed up the top half of the cage a certain amount. With us having the permanent pen, one of the cage doors (which is half the frontal area) is open all the time, and there are two big mesh vents in the top of the cage, so the heat escapes quite quickly. I think if I covered the top vents it would keep some more heat in. If you had the doors closed and normal ventilation, I think it would heat the whole cage quite successfully. As I sort of said before, the heater has virtually no effect in a whole room, previously I fitted it about 18" off the ground in the pen with a metal reflector above, but the girls didn't even detect that it was warm at all underneath it, so I don't think it would work very well in a wire cage.

[deguconvert]

I suspect that closing the upper vents as you suggest, would keep more of the warmth in the cage. Is that something you will do?

[moletteuk]

Update on this:

Yes, DC, I partially covered the top vents with cardboard to hold some more heat in the cage generally.

Main update is that the plastic retainer on the top of the heater started to discolour and distort slightly, so I presume the heater isn't really supposed to be mounted vertically like this. So, now I've just mounted it horizontally under the shelf, and it seems fine.



They chomped away the shelf edging pretty quickly just to get a fraction nearer the heat source lol, so we had to replace it, and then they did it again, so we've had to replace it and put some metal angle on the section near the heater. The metal isn't in a direct line with the heat, so it doesn't seem to get hot. This has solved the problem, but it's sometimes a bit of shame to spoil their fun, they looked so content with their arms dangling over the edge. Oh well, they still look happy spread out flat on the shelf above the heat.