Flying saucers - waste of space or as good as a wheel?

[haarrrllll]

I've looked high and low for a decent flying saucer wheel. P@H only seem to have ones which are too small, and any ones large enough are made of plastic.

So, I made my own. It's a modified Trixie wooden 28cm wheel. I'm more than happy to share pics of it, I considered making and selling fully hand-made versions.

To begin with, I tilted the wheel about 20 degrees off the floor. I used a jigsaw to remove about half of the usual running platform for the usual wheel. The flying saucer platform therefore had a lip around the edge. My degu loved to run around on it, but I didn't get the chance to see how more than one degu would run together on it. 

I modified it some more using cork and elmer's school glue. Now it looks the part, but it's much more heavy and it has no lip around the edge. Now it's just a chew toy! It could be too heavy to run on now.

Does anyone have any degus who love flying saucers, or should I turn my hand onto making something else for them to play with? 

[bouncy]

My delinquents had a large metal flying saucer for a while, which they loved. Available on Amazon and Northern Parrots, it was made by Wagner, and they had the XL size. Unfortunately, some of the washers disintegrated after a while, and I couldn't get it apart to replace them. Without, it wobbled a bit, making it noisy. They now have a couple of tictac wheels. The gerbils still have the next size down, which is still good, so I suspect the goos were just too fat

Quite a few members have made their own flying saucers using lazy susans, and there's a tutorial in this section somewhere

[moletteuk]

Here is a thread on flying saucers: deguworld.proboards.com/thread/20093/flying-saucer-wheel The Snudda lazy susan from ikea is a good staring point for making one, but make sure you buy a free flowing one.

You could try increasing the angle of yours to get it running again, but it may need to be more steep than is manageable if it's heavy. If the surface is rough and grippy you can get away without any kind of lip or saucer shape slope. My Snudda based one was just the plain wood flat surface that I roughened up a lot with a saw.

In my experience some degus love a flying saucer and others just don't and it depends how big the cage is as to whether it is a good use of space. Always worth trying one in a playpen though where there is plenty of space.

[butters]

Made them myself with some ikea plates, they are pretty big so not easy to fit in the cage. Our degus love them though

[deguconvert]

The gold coloured one makes me think of a cymbal! Very cool!

[haarrrllll]

Bouncy, I think that wheel (the £43.50 one on Amazon?) generally has some durability issues. Seem to be either sand or something that gets into the bearings. It'd be over fifty quid for something that won't last!

That thread on flying saucers is useful, thanks molleteuk. I had considered making one with a lazy susan foundation but I didn't want any part of it to be made of wood I couldn't confirm is 100% safe. I got a lazy susan ball bearing metal plate, but then I found out that 30cm width kiln dried pine is either far too thick or simply doesn't exist. If I made a circular plate 30cm wide I'd possibly be connecting 3 strips of wood. It could still work, but I've not been able to source any kiln dried pine during the lockdown.

butters, those plates look amazing! That gold coloured one looks really cool. What did you use for the spinning mechanism?

I'd add a picture of my attempt, but the add image function doesn't seem to be working. I'll add a link in a seperate message.

[haarrrllll]

imgur.com/a/mX4YkcO

[haarrrllll]

Willie just wants to nibble the whole thing. Everything is made from reclaimed parts from the wheel in the background, with some additional bits of cork for grip. I used Elmer's school glue.

The only time he zooms around it is when he sits on the higher part to nibble it. He doesn't actually run on it.... And I don't want him eating all of the cork!

On Degutopia, cork is mentioned as a toxic wood:

"Oak; Cork
(Quercus spp.; Quercus suber)

Leaves, bark and dust are eye and skin sensitisers, dust is a suspected carcinogen. Acorns are toxic."

However, cork is used on the wheel in the background. It's less easy to nibble it, but it's stil cork. On my other wheel 90% of the cork has been eaten. Is cork truly toxic?

[winic1]

Degutopia is full of, shall we say, misinformation. Badly needs updating and some common sense research.

"Acorns are toxic."??!!!

No. Acorns are food. From the US National Wildlife Federation:

"We all know that from tiny acorns mighty oak trees grow, but we should add that from tiny acorns also grow deer, gray squirrels, red squirrels, chipmunks, wild turkeys, crows, flying squirrels, rabbits, opossums, blue jays, quail, raccoons, wood ducks—more than 100 U.S. vertebrate species eat acorns. In autumn and winter, the acorn is the cheeseburger of the forest ecosystem—fairly easy to find and nicely packaged. They are one of the most valuable food resources available for wildlife."

Properly prepared, people can even eat acorns.

Wildlife lives in, on, and under oak trees.  They don't die from them, unless the tree falls on top of them.

That list of problem woods is from laboratory testing, where they do things like grind the wood to fine powder, then dump it in some poor lab-test animal's eye, and measure how irritated it becomes.  Well, dump almost any kind of dust in any kind of eyeball, and it's going to be an irritant.

Oak wood has long been used to make the barrels for aging wine in.  Oak corks are used to stopper the wine bottles.  Oak is chosen because of the tannins in the wood that leach (dissolve out of the wood) into the wine for the flavor it helps add.  Nowadays winemakers add oak wood chips to the wine to give it more flavor more quickly.

Due to the very sad and terrible health problems of the owner of the Degutopia site, it has not been updated nor its information reviewed or revised in many years.  Better to look for information elsewhere, or research info you see there for yourself.

[butters]

Dr. Chloe Long from degutopia died last year

[butters]

May 21, 2020 7:18:57 GMT deguconvert said:

The gold coloured one makes me think of a cymbal! Very cool!

Thinking of that myself, maybe a good idea because ikea doesn't have those ones anymore.

[bouncy]

The tictac wheels use a Rollerblade wheel for the bearings, so it's an inexpensive place to start.

Cork is definitely not toxic. Many of the wooden wheels available in Germany have cork inlays as the running surface mine have had cork tunnels from day one, and they're still alive. Some safe woods, such as bamboo, taste too bitter for many, so don't get chewed like other options.

[moletteuk]

May 21, 2020 14:56:14 GMT butters said:

Dr. Chloe Long from degutopia died last year

I had no idea, how sad, she was only young, thanks for letting us know.


Haaarlll I think you have basically decorated your flying saucer to make it super attractive for a degu to chew! Anything sticking up like that is begging to be chewed by a degu! Cork is safe, and generally child safe glue is safe. I would take off all the sticking up bits around the edge and try it with a smooth covering of cork. I think the cork is a good idea as it should be nicely grippy, but I would expect them to chew around the edge.

My saucer made from the snudda ikea lazy susan I think was made from rubber wood glued together in strips, they did chew it but the wood was hard so they chewed it at quite a slow rate after the first week or two. If you wanted to make a pine saucer, I would be fairly comfortable with you using 'pine timberboard' which is pine stips glued together, or you could buy a rubberwood extra large plate that you can sand the varnish off and rough up. I suppose you could use pine planks glued and screwed together with metal plates at the back too, if you can plate it around where the mechanism needs to be.

[haarrrllll]

Oh jeez, I had no idea about the owner of degutopia she's left quite a legacy behind in the degu community.

I thought cork was alright to be honest, but seeing it on any toxic wood list doesn't fill me with confidence. Besides, it's not ideal when so much is eaten when it's supposed to be run on! I'll take off the decorative bits of cork around the edge, even if it does look pretty.

Beyond B&Q, I've struggled to find degu safe woods to make anything with. Where is rubberwood available?

Regarding pine timberboard, who knows what adhesive they use. It certainly not going to be safe. If I stumble across an efficient way of making flying saucers, I'd think about producing them to sell. I'm leaning towards wood, but those metal ones do look brilliant.

[butters]

There are a lot of videos on youtube how to make them.