HOW TO BUILD A DEGU CAGE !

[NightwishRaven999]

I have several videos on the matter of cage building on Youtube and after seeing the amount of people who were actually interested in such a project, I decided to make my own web page on the matter.

web.archive.org/web/20120215093827/http://octodondegus.weebly.com/how-to-build-a-degu-cage.html

I just though this might prove useful to some of you : )

[emz]

Hey nightwish, a lot of the time I use that one vid on YouTube of yours as an example so the fact you have now made a website with that information is wonderful as it has much more detail than the original video.

The information looks formatted well and lots of pictures is always good. Great job! I've also always loved your cage. ;D

[deguconvert]

DITTO!!! Thanks for posting that here for us!

[NightwishRaven999]

Hello ! Thanks for your feeback.
I get a lot of questions on the matter of building a cage.
A lot of degu owners have questions and doubts...some are worried of air circulation issues, others are worried that the degus might chew a hole in the cage.
Some lack confidence due to having no wood working skill and others are afraid cleaning might be too long and hard.

I used to reply to these questions by writing long messages to all the different users...but as time went by, I got more and more questions. So now when someone has questions about building a degu cage, I just send them to my small site.

Its not complete yet, as I am still adding info to it...but so far it answers a multitude of common questions and clears up some doubts.

Thanks for you encouragement...photos are fun and helpful.
They make writen explanations easy to understand and also make the reading more enjoyable.

Thank you for your support : )

[emz]

Just having a more detailed read of this article and am enjoying it so far. I do want to make a cage in the future when I eventually move out of my parents house so it's good that it goes into such depth about sizing/materials/cleaning/etc. I don't think I've seen a degu cage building article so detailed, it really is excellent.

[NightwishRaven999]

Glad you are enjoying it.

I will be adding more info everyday, but if you feel I can add more information or be more specific about a certain aspect, let me know.

I have already gotten a request to add a small tutorial on how to fit the levels in the cage.
So I will be working on that later on.

[catcat3]

Hi, I really enjoyed looking at your self build cage, just one question, do you need to put anything on the edge of the glass to stop them chewing it.
thinking I might get my husband to make one very soon, no bars to chew on sounds brill!!!

[NightwishRaven999]

I have no yet added this topic to the website, since its still in work...but I am happy to answer you here.

I cannot tell you for sure if you need a strip of wood at the front.
I have used one in my first two cages, but no longer need to use one now.
It can be a very good idea though to use a strip of wood at the front.
If you dont have many toys or branches for the degus to chew on, they can turn desperate.
They cannot chew on the wood of the cage but they can do a bit of damage to the plastic sliders that hold the glass.
A simple strip of wood will protect the slider. The degus will chew on this piece, but rarely so if the cage is big and well furnished with toys and accesories. Even if the strip of wood is regularly chewed up, it can be replaced easily.

Hope this helps...

[NightwishRaven999]

While making my latest degu cage a few months ago, I decided to take some photos and some video footage of the cage building process.

So if any of you are looking forward to building a degu cage in the future...this will prove most useful to you.
It can help you see in what order the wood pieces should be assembled...etc

[emz]

That cage looks great! I bet your ladies enjoy it. I will definitely be looking back at this sometime in the next couple of months. ;D

[katelills]

This is just great! I plan to do one over the summer, once my boys are back together anyway, and when i have some more cash to play with. This really is impressive. xx

[NightwishRaven999]

Glad to hear that
I will be here if any of you are looking for bits of advice on building a cage.

As far as the setup goes, possibilities are endless.
Remember that if you are building a large cage, you have a lot of room to work with.
In a wire cage, there is a limit to what you can do...but in a wooden cage, you can create a very realistic looking setup for your degus.
You can use lots of bedding and you dont have to worry about the degus kicking it out. You can use very large amounts of hay to make thick hills and relief on the bottom floor.
You can also use very large pieces of wood and branches.
Rocks and stones are great to simulate a natural environment.

Of course, levels arent natural...but they are nessacary since they provide the degus with additional floor space.
If you want to have a little working space to fit branches on the levels its important to make the cage high enough...that way the levels arent stuck so close to each other.

There are so many options when setting up a cage.
Its fun to clean out the cage and rearrange everything.

Bedding might seem boring, but when you use a lot of it, its amazing to see the degus dig huge pits and try to landscape the cage to their liking.

If you make the base of the cage deep enough, you can put cardboard boxes under the bedding layer. A box with an opening and a large PVC pipe leading to the opening can provide lots of fun for the degus...especially if the box is under the bedding and only the pipe opening can be seen.

Cleaning up the cage actually becomes a fun thing, especially since you need to rearrange the cage and change the setup afterwards.

Its really fun
I hope one of you will soon be able to try out a cage building project.
The degus look so much more "at home" when living in such an environment. I have a good friend who wasnt too keen about wooden degu cage. When one of his new degu girls unexpectedly gave birth, he was forced to give them a bigger home.
It was either buying a larger cage or building one.
He decided to build a wooden cage and he is really seeing the benefits and the change it brought to his degus.
Once you try it, you will never want to go back.

[deguconvert]

WAY cool!

[NightwishRaven999]

@ deguconvert
I agree : )
The last photo, is the degu cage one of my friends built less then a month ago.
The degu cage in the fourth photo is bigger than the one my degu girls live in.
I have found that photo very inspiring in the past and it still moves me today to try and make a better home for my degus.
Hopefully EMZ and Katelills will be able to use these photos as guides for later on.

[emz]

I started planning in advance the setup/size/etc. even though I can't afford it.

So far I have decided that its dimensions would be 150 wide, 50 deep and 100 tall (centimeters) but that's all I've got lol. ;D

I only have 2 degus and the cage calculator says 2 - 6 so it seems big enough for them.

[NightwishRaven999]

Those dimensions are great.
Anything over 100x50x100 is perfect !

The best thing you can do for now is to check out wood prices at different hardware stores.
As the degus wont be chewing the cage up, most woods are safe to use as long as they are not stained, varnished or treated.
If you are looking into pine, just make sure the sheets dont smell resin and look for sheets that dont contain to many knots or holes. Remember that the degus are not able to chew a flat surface but they can start chewing around knots and holes in the wood.

So for the future, when you are actually looking to purchase the materials, look for straight sheets with the fewest imperfections possible.

Plywood is also a great to build the cage structure. Its cheap, solid and comes in large sheets.


Keep making plans...and decide how you would like the levels to be placed.
Eventually you will come up with a setup you really like and will be able to go for it once you have the means.

Its really fun to plan and its even more fun to build it.
150x50x100 cm might not look so big on paper...but once you see a cage that size, you will be in awe ;D

[emz]

Haha yeah the width looks massive I got the tape measure out and compared it to the current cage to make sure I didn't rebuild something the same size by accident. It was funny seeing Steve and Felix come over watching the tape measure wondering what it was! ;D

The new dimensions are a little bit shorter than the current cage but they have a lot more horizontal space, which was more what I was going for and a tiny bit more depth. That is why I actually bought a more horizontal cage to begin with rather than vertical as I guessed running about would be more vital than height for climbing (then later found out my intuition was correct) but my current cages base is deemed not deep enough by the degu cage calculator. I'm not sure what I should do with the old cage after ... Maybe just store it away for emergencies? It is extremely heavy and difficult to move about. When we move I will move the degus once the new cage is ready (hopefully) so they can just transition straight to the new house and a new cage.

I have looked about online last night with my boyfriend at the local DIY store websites for woods and did in fact look at Plywood for the sides. I spent time looking on your site at your channel and the few others you recommended on there (and the images in this topic) to see what other people made stuff out of as luckily my boyfriend can tell what they are by looking at them even though I can't hehe, but now I have learnt some of them too so you learn something new every day! ;D

For the shelves we know already that the stores sell some small pieces of kiln dried softwood, which we have used before for none degu related stuff. Minus having to cut off some sections with knots in (which had loads of resin still inside) the wood was of good quality and we still have a bit left so that can go towards it too. As they can chew shelves I wanted something goo friendly for that part. Also speaking of knots thanks for that tip about the main walls I didn't think about that!

Oops I started rambling a bit!

[NightwishRaven999]

* Most knots are fine though.
Just make sure you dont have too many of those "pot hole" style ones that are suken down in the wood.

As far as kiln dried pine for the levels, that sounds good.
The degus should have many birch branches and toys in the cage but they will most likely also chew on the levels a bit.
Using safe wood is advisable then.

If you looked at different photos of cages, you probably noticed everyone uses different materials. There is actually little importance placed on wood types in Germany.
Most degu owners in this country house their degus in wooden cages, but the majority of them dont place much importance of what wood they use.
Rather, they seem to focus on building very large enclosures and furnishing the cage with a multitude of wood branches and logs.

As you have seen from the degu cage calculator, the standards are very high for the size of degu cages.
According to their standards, anything that falls short of 100x50x100 cm is totally unnaceptable.

I was a little shocked too when I was housing my degus in a metal cage. I though the cage was descent, but when I put the dimensions in the site, I was told the cage was not suitable to house even two degus, yet I was keeping four in there

*This has totally nothing to do...but it just goes to show how differently degus are kept in Germany and other european countries.
The degu owners I know from over there, do not use food pellets to feed their degus. They actually have shops that sell dried flowers, herbs, leaves, seeds and barks specifically for degus.
They place very little importance on food pellets and dont rely on them like we do.
Sometimes I get very upset speaking to them...we have very limited amounts of degu products in Canada, so its very difficult to find food, wheels and other accessories safe for degus.

I know in the UK its a little better, since they are more popular.
You guys are lucky

My own rambling is done now ;D

[emz]

With Plywood, considering it is lots of layers of wood glued together, would a knot (with no resin/etc. in it) be an issue when it comes to the main walls? As if they chewed the knot there would still be many layers behind it that they surely then wouldn't be able to chew due to them being unable to chew a flat surface? I was wondering this earlier and so decided it was a good idea to ask.

As for branches and the like, although we live by the sea the beach here is disgusting (I would not trust any driftwood to not be covered in goodness knows what) however we do have a park about a mile away and it's quite nice. I might be able to sneak some branches away if they have any Birch trees about, which I am sure they will have. I want to make the cage more natural like how yours is more full of branches and some tissue, egg boxes etc. rather than buying lots of expensive toys from the store like I have to right now. I still want 1 or two toys occasionally to keep them entertained and with something new but it seems nicer to have a more natural environment. Seeing them behind their wire mesh after seeing some of the other cages seems a bit depressing also: like confinement rather than an enclosure.

I also want to make them a digging area built in at the bottom so it's nice and thick and they can have a good time burrowing about. They might get a bit confused at first considering how shallow the substrate in their cage is now due to the mesh but I bet they'd come to really enjoy it. ;D

[NightwishRaven999]

There is no danger with plywood since right under a knot there is another flat sheet of wood.
Plywood sheets usually come with a lot of knots...but they are rarely deep.

Honestly its not much to worry about.
From what you said about wanting a cage 150x50x100 cm, I can tell you want to build something big...let me assure you that in a cage that size, the degus will not be breaking their heads to find a way to escape.
In a small cage, they will explore every inperfection, every hole and will chew on any lose ends...but in a large cage, they calm down a lot.

As far as the driftwoods though, I cannot guarantee their safety.
I have been using driftwood piece in by degu cages for a long time but I would never recommend them to someone else.
I have never heard anyone who furnished the cage with this wood, but I find it very appealing.
My degus have also never seemed interested in chewing on them.

I figure that driftwood is fine. There is difference though, between wood that has been in the water for a few months and real driftwood. Driftwood is wood that has been in the water for several years. Softwood trees like Birch cannot form driftwoods...instead these softwoods decompose in the water.
Other hardwood trees however, absord the water and keep their shape and sturdiness.

I collect driftwood pieces from lakes and rivers.
Depending on the size of the piece, I boil them or put them in the oven to kill off any parasites it might have picked up from the lake or river. I also let the piece dry for a few months.
Since I am also a freshwater tropical fish aquarist and an owner of two lizards, I have many uses for such woods.
I use them to furnish the aquariums, the lizard enclosures and use some of the pieces for the degu cage.

If you ask me, wood that has been soaking in water for years, boiled/heated, dried and cleaned out is safe for wildlife in general.
Since this wood is devoid of bark or smell of any type, the degus dont seem interested in them. They will just sit on them and chew up the birch instead.
I have done no research and dont know anyone else who uses them in their degu cage...so I will not recommend this to you.
I would also avoid picking up driftwood from the sea since these woods have no doubt absorbed lots of minerals and salt.
Anyways...sorry for rambling.
I always go off topic somehow ;D

As for the digging area and depth of the substrate, your degus will have so much fun...and so will you. You will be able to watch them dig like crazy without having a mess on the floor.
In the website, I recommend making a deep base...this way you wont have bedding fall out the cage every time you open the cage doors.

Keep this in mind...the first time I built a cage, this went completly over my head. I only realized this problem once the degus started kicking the bedding around and moving it up to the front of the cage.

Something my degus love, is when I place a big clay pot upside down on the bedding and put some oats underneath.
The pot is too heavy for them to move, so they go all crazy and eventually figure out, they need to dig under bedding to get to the oats inside the clay pot.

Crazy degus