Pointers on doing a natural cage setup?

[KID COYOTE]

So I've come crawling back, haha. I considered asking this on one of the Facebook groups I'm on but... I can't be the only one who feels like they're not too keen on new ideas – if you don't have a ferret nation covered in fleece, they don't want to know you!

I mentioned in another thread my interest in naturalistic/"German style" hamster cages, but I've never seen anything like that replicated for chins. The execution would be slightly different; for hamsters, the focus is on different substrates and burrowing opportunities. As we know, though, chinchillas aren't that way inclined— so my focus is rock structures, caves, things like that. Big branches, baked and boiled of course, sprouting up from the ground of the cage. Carefully crafted, chinchilla sized nooks and crannies. Exciting stuff!

However, as stated previously, I haven't really seen this replicated much elsewhere. Sure, people have put branches or rocks in their cages, but my goal is to have it almost be a like reptile vivarium. Except for a chinchilla, obviously, haha!

My research of "hamsterscaping" as it's called has lead me to a few questions that I'm hoping some of the Great Chinchilla Elders of the Wild Internet can answer for me.

• How do you think dried reptile moss would go down? I imagine it'd be gobbled up but i've considered putting it places he can't reach, mostly to add a teensy bit of greenery to the cage. Live moss is obviously a no-no due to the moisture content.
• As for my rock structures, I'm considering finding some rocks of varying sizes and shapes, washing them, drying them, blah blah blah; and then cementing them together. Let it be known that I originally cemented the bottom of Will's cage which had pros and cons; he seemed to like the rougher texture and it dulled his nails a bit, but on the rare occasion that he decided not to use his litter tray he'd pee on the cement. Which, being porous, absorbed it. Lovely. I have a few tiles in there for now, hoping to get those set and grouted soon. Live and learn! Point being, I reckon there's less chance of him peeing on a non-flat surface, but then again, who's to say. I'm just wondering if anyone has any other suggestions for what I can use to bind all the rocks together! I've seen some posts about using tile adhesive but from what I can gather, getting the consistency right is a bit tricky.
• So I'll likely be tiling most of the cage. But I've considered a separate, natural section of the cage for foraging and things: I'd love to use some kind of substrate for this, but nothing too loose that he'll kick about. Like a compressed brick. Probably extremely impractical, but I'm just thinking aloud.

I think that's all I've got for now; if I think of anything else that's bugging me I'll add it. Thanks for reading this far haha, I'm a ramble sometimes. Let me know if you need any clarification on what I mean here! 

[winic1]

Well, I was going to give you the thread on my degu cage, which I made with lots of natural wood features, as ideas you might scale up for chinchillas, but photobucket seems to have fuzzed out the pictures a bit (as part of their change to being greed-based some years ago). So, here's the link, perhaps you can still see enough to get some ideas. deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15977/paradise-critter-nation

I live in the woods, so I was able to collect from my own yard and nearby forest.
We used big chunks of bark, big willow trees grow very thick bark that needs no support; these became shelves and ramps and places to hide under and behind. Slices of tree logs, split them off longways so you have the rounded side on one side, the split side on the other (instead of cutting slices across, which you could also use, but would be much more porous to pee). Split branches, planed smooth to avoid big jagged splinters, became ramps and shelves.
Since degus are smaller, we put some rocks in as places to help climb or jump on.
Used cocomat for floor covering, tho eventually they decided it was to be immediately ripped up into fluff for stuffing nests and huts.

One very real problem we did not plan on, was the weight of using so much natural stuff. We built our degu habitat inside a double Critter Nation cage. After about 6 months, I noticed it starting to lean, and it slowly got worse. Now, maybe we just didn't get a very strong cage to begin with, a little bit defective, perhaps? But I mostly believe that all the weight of all that wood and rocks were more than it was designed for. We fixed the problem by strapping pieces of angle iron up the four side corners of the cage. But the lesson is, plan ahead for the weight of what you are going to have inside whatever you use for the cage, so you don't have to jerry-rig a fix to it later.

[deguconvert]

Hello, Kid Coyote! I'm wondering what the interior dimensions are of the space/cage that you plan to use for this? Years ago on here, a member had a cage put in for their chinchillas that was . . . my goodness, I can't remember the dimensions, except that they were about the same size as the smallest bedroom in my home, which is 9 feet by 10 feet, and it was about 7 feet tall. This cage had a full on door that they could walk in through to spend time with their chins. Large, long levels at varying heights, arranged to accommodate a long run or leaping. There were no pictures, just descriptions, and as I recall, the chins absolutely LOVED the massive space. I suspect that isn't quite what you have in mind . . . but when I imagine making a cage for chins, I always think of the size of that particular one, and then go from there. LOL! Obviously this cage had to be brought in in pieces and then be assembled on site. Also, it was not designed as a cage for chins, but for something else, and it is possible that it was for small primates. It was also adapted for the different needs of chins. The cost must have been massive.

NOT expecting you to have the same aspiration, but what do you want to work with? The size will impact what you can safely build into it, as Winic says above. As well as perhaps limiting what you can put in so as not to end up cramping the natural movements of your chin(s).

[moletteuk]

REally interesting project!

(disclaimer - I've never had chinchillas)

Are you building this within a home built wooden structure? Definitely bear in mind it will probably be too heavy to move.

I've been off hunting because this rang bells with me from ages ago. I found this thread:
deguworld.proboards.com/thread/17885/creating-artificial-rock-back-wall
I don't think anyone ever found or used the NonaD product in the UK, so you probably won't find it in Ireland, but you never know, websites selling all across Europe are more common these days. I think epoxy tile grout is probably a good option for waterproof cement, but it's probably not going to be very strong and likely will still soak up pee. I've got a grout coating product that I use in our shower to help stop the water soaking into the grout, maybe something like that would help.

One thing that strikes me that when I was building our degu cage and then subsequently watching them use the space over several years, I found it very useful to be able to alter the cage according to how they used the space. So, I would definitely recommend building in some flexibility.

Is there an issue with rock being hard for them if they fell onto it?

Maybe you could do a rock based zone and a wood based zone?

[KID COYOTE]

I knew I could count on this forum, hehe. Excuse any spotty formatting, I'm on mobile right now ^^;

winic1 — The cage is wall-mounted, made of fairly heavy ply and even heftier plane for framing. Hopefully weight shouldn't be much of a problem, but I can always add extra support if need be. Thanks for the tip, I never would've thought of that!

Your cage is absolutely gorgeous too and somewhat similar to what I've been thinking of going for. (Wish photobucket wasn't such an ass so I could see it properly though!) Have you had much issue with chewing, other than with the cocomats? In will's old cage I had hawthorn branches and they were sturdy as hell so I assume not with the bigger chunks.

deguconvert  — The space I'm working with is about 4' x 2' x 2', give or take. My chin himself is relatively small haha! A lot of people recommend tall cages but Will seems much happier in this cage compared to his old one, which was basically the same dimensions but flipped to be vertical. Not great for a creature that likes to sprawl so much! But yeah, that makes sense! I've sort of vaguely planned out what I want to do, within the confines of the dimensions of the cage – shall possibly sketch up what I mean when I get home from college tomorrow.

moletteuk  — As mentioned above, the cage is already mounted to a wall so thankfully no heavy lifting involved on my part, lol! As suggested though, I'll definitely keep an eye on the weight of the build itself in case of any sagging or warping.
I actually stumbled upon that topic during my research hunt back a bit! Definitely interesting stuff but epoxy tile resin makes more sense to me. The issue with sealant and even resin in general is chewing, since I don't want my chin getting all that nastiness in his system. Partially why I wanted to go with cement since it seemed the most natural to me! If I can get my hands on non-toxic and relatively odorless sealant then happy days. Although in saying that, it'd be pretty hard for him to jam his wee gnashers in between the rocks to access whatever's glueing them together, but you can never trust the buggers, lol.

Flexibility is a good point for sure; at present, his wheel is immovable so i have to work around that, but everything else is totally malleable. I do only have one door though so I'll need to keep that in mind too. (A decision I very much regret, haha!) 
Some of the hamsterscaping builds i've seen have most of their components detachable which is an excellent idea, but chinchillas are much better at bulldozing than hamsters are. Hopefully I can work around that some way.
Theoretically the whole rock build will be mostly linear to look natural and to limit big falls. The 2ft height should hopefully mitigate that too, and they do tend to be quite graceful anyway.
I love the idea of a rock and wood zone, could you elaborate on that? :0

Just for the sake of clarification, here is the current cage. It's fairly bare bones rn, just essentials with some chew toys scattered about til I figure out what I'm doing, but so are he's content enough.

[deguconvert]

Just out of curiosity, is there a fully open space beneath his cage?

[KID COYOTE]

Nov 14, 2019 1:51:31 GMT deguconvert said:

Just out of curiosity, is there a fully open space beneath his cage?

Yeah, there is! Currently just have bags of hay and bedding under there but there's nothing permanent in the way.
EDIT: there's a dresser that juts underneath but only takes up about 6 inches!

[deguconvert]

Would you consider adding additional cage space beneath what you currently have? Something almost as big as what you currently have, unless that space is dedicated to storage of hay and bedding? If it was snugly beneath, it would add additional support to the cage above, and it would give him some extra space. You might then consider putting his wheel in the area below so that you could deck out the upper space uninhibited by the presence of the wheel. You could make it a little more cozy and soft like a nest, and the upper area the active zone with the rocks and things.

[KID COYOTE]

deguconvert that is a sweet idea! Though for now I don't think I have the resources for something like that. 😅
Even though I ADORE the idea of a separate nesting compartment hehe.

[deguconvert]

The good thing about ideas, they can last as long as needed. Well . . . in lots of cases. LOL!

[moletteuk]

I think the trick will be to use as much solid tile (or rocks or whatever) and as little resin as possible, make the gaps as small as possible. I'm wondering if epoxy tile grout might be safer than resin as there must be less epoxy in it as it seems to be sand based, depends if it would be waterproof enough, I guess resin is going to be completely waterproof.

With the zones I was thinking of something like a 3 layer cage with for example a wood based sleep layer, maybe a rock layer for hanging out and being active and maybe some kind of natural branch feeding area or whatever you think he would enjoy.

We don't have exact cage size guidelines for chinchillas but I agree with deguconvert that doubling up the space would give him more space and give you lots more scope to bring about your ideas. If you aren't up for that right now, do bear in mind that the more stuff you add the less space he has for running about.