Thickets House Extension! Advice Needed!!

[baileyandgrey]

I have a p@h thickets house cage and urgently want to extend as I feel its too small for my male pair. I currently don't have a spare £200 to buy an x-trail type cage or build my own. My plan is to build a huge wooden cage with built in storage next summer when I move back home after finishing uni and I can take advantage of my mum's big living room and my dad's power tools/carpentry skills.

Anyway... for now I want to add a second thickets cage which I see has been advise a number of times on this site. However my question is: How do you do this?

I'm fairly creative, I have made a gerbil cage and also modified a terrarium for their housing upgrade. I have a small collection of tools as well. But I wanted some more detailed instructions as I can't afford to cut into the cage and mess it up! So if anyone has done something like this with a thickets cage, I could really use your advice! Pictures of a joined cage would also be fantastic!

[Kat]

Hi, I have stack of three pets at home cages.
This is how did it.

First I cut a hole of about 6" x 4" in the top of one of the cages. I would recomend filing this down well as the wire is very sharp.

The other cage..I opened the clips around the bottom and removed the mesh. I then cut the bottom lip off to make the cage bottom all one height (on the line where the mesh was removed from).
I kept the "tray flap" to use later.
Again file all of this down. Trust me it will be worth it.
I then used the cage clips to attach this cage to the top of the other cage.
I then put the tray flap back in place. At this point it should be attached to the top of the first cage.
I got my dad to help cut holes in the metal trays as he has some big boy tools. If you cant do this though you could leave the tay out and line that part with card or coconut mats.

I used the removed mesh to make extra doors.

Let me know if there is anything that I havent explained properly of if you want any close up photos of different areas.
Kat
x



These are not brilliant photos i know. I wish that I had of thought of taking more at the time.

[baileyandgrey]

Thanks Kat. That is really helpful and the pictures look great!

Just a couple of questions...

Was the wire difficult to cut? What did you use?

Once you take of the existing clips that hold the cages together, can you reuse them to attach the separate cages?

Also, the extra doors are such a good idea, how did you do that? Just cut a hole and use the excess wire? Did you have to buy an extra spring?

Cheers

[Kat]

Please excuse my "technical" terms, I usually refer to everything as a thingy. So I hope you know what I'm talking about. Ha

Was the wire difficult to cut? What did you use?

It was pretty easy to cut. I used a regular set of snips and a pound shop file.

Once you take of the existing clips that hold the cages together, can you reuse them to attach the separate cages?

I did yes. I undid them by shoving the edge of a flathead screwdriver into the center of the clip, then twisting.
I used a pair chunky pliers to squeeze them back on. If you get the clip almost back to the correct shape before putting them back on it is a lot easier.

Also, the extra doors are such a good idea, how did you do that? Just cut a hole and use the excess wire?

Pretty much yeah, I just made sure the whole was symmetrical to the other door. I also turned the other door around so that the both open from the center out wards. I used 4 cage clips on each door.

Did you have to buy an extra spring?

I bought a hook, eye and some curtain wire for about 25p a meter from a little sewing shop at the local market. The inner is exactly the same at the springs on this cage. You can strip the white plastic cover off with scissors. Total cost less than 30p.
Do you have a shop like this anywhere near you?

Kat
x

[baileyandgrey]

Right, that all makes sense! I should be able to get my hands on the little extras fairly easily! As soon as I can get my hands on a extra cage I will give it a go and let you know how I get on!

Thanks again

[sierrasmom97]

I have a cage similar to what is in your pictures. I am working on getting some wood shelves made for my pair and I have some thin wood laid on the bottom of the cage so they have a solid surface to sit on so their feet don't get hurt. What is the proper wire spacing for the bottom of the cage where they would walk? I am not sure if the spacing is too large or if I should cover it with another layer of smaller wire. Thanks!

[deguconvert]

Degus shouldn't walk on wire surfaces at all. Bumble foot will result no matter what the size of opening is in the mesh. It is the extreme amount of pressure that is exerted on such a small area of the foot that causes the bumblefoot infections. If you can use lino tiles, wood, ceramic tiles, grass mats, or thick substrate to cover the mesch, it is much, much better for your degus health.

[nicola27]

Kat that is a bl*ody awesome cage!! How do they get between the layers? Are there little tubes to climb up/down or something? Good work!

My friend in work had the same cage as we do, but she got 2 extra boys and now has 4 and we just have 2 girls. She bought a chest-of-drawers from a charity shop and converted their cage taking all the drawers out except the top one; so her boys have the top drawer as a hiding place/bed, used the cage for the front of the.. er.. chest (?) and put in small 'bits' of wood as small shelves around the place. It looks great.

NOW my boyfriend wants to do the same!! Grr! He says it will stop the ridiculous mess we come downstairs to every morning and home to every evening! Sawdust and poops all around the cage on the floor!! It's just ridiculous! I don't want to do it as we only got the cage around August time and it cost about £70, but I do as it will be a lot less mess and hopefully no noise from biting the bars and the handles as it drives me absolutely f*cking CRAZY!! Sometimes I just want to let them out and don't care if they chew the wire to my boyfriend's £2,500 27" iMac cos the biting just drives me mad!!

Any thoughts on the chest of drawers cage? He also says it will look nicer than a cage, cos it's a piece of furniture. Yes in the living room lol

[mhb]

That is awesome Kat - hadn't seen pictures of your cage set up before.
I have two Thicketts cages on top of each other for our three girls which I made last summer.
I am hoping to build them a big wooden one after I have sorted our living room out.

I think Kat has answered most of your questions, but I'll say once cannibalising your cage be careful of the sharp bit.
I had big long leather stove gloves when I cut mine up and got the odd nick here and there.

Mine only has one hole between layers but I tried to fill mine with natural woods and my parents have an apple and a birch tree in their garden which they trim back regularly.
I took some some of these branches, soaked them in boiling water, then pet safe disinfectant sprayed them, measured and cut them so they would go from side to side or back to front depending on where I wanted the little critters to climb and then secured each end through the bars of the cage with a decent length screw and a large washer. I have four intersecting branches in the cage and one is ladder between levels - cheap and fairly easy to build - something I will carry over to the wooden one.

I bascially have a step by step of how I did it but it's on my locked Facebook profile.
I'll try and set up a Photobucket account or start a blog to link some - but I would follow Kat's advice.

I think aesthetically I can see the advantage of the chest of drawers cage, but it would depend on the wood.
I am building a box because at the moment we have to lift the double cage up and down and my partner has a bad back.
Building a box that sits on the floor means we can go up higher, build a cupboard for their toys and the lower part can be glass/perspex so we avoid sweeping up all the time they decide to fling poop out.
Plus we can also put a playpen up to the cage and sit in it with them so they can play and get time out without munching on over £5ks worth of rare vinyl!

[smithomatic]

Thanks for sharing these pictures kat, they are incredible, really informative!

A great example of how to extend a wire cage!

Thanks for posting!