White Melamine Wood? Covering sides with metal?

[serisu]

I've been looking into buying a used cage for my darling girls, since their current cage can't seem to keep them in it, and I don't think it's quite enough room for the dears to have a lot of fun. I recently ran across a home-made cage intended for chinchillas made of white melamine wood. From what I've read, this does not seem like something I want my dears chewing on. What do you guys think?

Here is a picture of the cage in question

The dimensions are 4 feet long, 3 feet tall, and 2 feet deep, and it is made out of white melamine wood, plexiglass, and some wiring.

This is what I've been reading on the wood, and I shot them (the seller) an email about it. To just point out a few lines that make it seem very not-degu-friendly, there was this

"The product is a core of particle board or MDF (medium-density fiberboard) that has paper bonded to one or both sides with a melamine resin."

and

"Both particle board and MDF are created by mixing waste wood product with an adhesive and then pressing the mixture into sheet form."

Please let me know what you think! : ) I love the look of the cage, but looks =/= safety!

EDIT;;

doing a bit of searching, I found that perhaps covering the sides with metal would keep it from being dangerous. How is that possible? I'm not very handy...

Also, I'm going to be adding in ladders and things for them to climb on. Should I just buy some from the store, or make them myself?

[deguconvert]

I certainly wouldn't want to have them chewing on the melamine, but I think you can find aluminum U channel stuff . . . sorry, I'm terrible with names . . . that is soft enough that I think you could bend it right into the shapes of the shelves. It would probably work for most of the surfaces in there . . . but you need to know that degus have proved able to chew through aluminum if they have a mind to do so!

I think that whether you build your own ladders and such or buy them, is really up to you and what you feel you have the time and interest in doing. A lot of us have used many parrot toys/items, and they work very well. I would suggest that you look around and see what catches your eye, and think about what you have on hand that could work as well. Let your creative juices flow!

[moletteuk]

As DC says, it's just the edges of the shelves, and possibly the openings in the sides that need covering to stop them being chewed. This isn't usually too difficult to do, but you may really struggle to find something to use for all those curves.