Parking Garage style cage?

[winic1]

I know my degu cage is a bit on the small side, tho we have ramps and multiple levels to increase their usable space, and it's wire cage so there's plenty of fresh air. When we adopted the degus, the info I had was that it was fine, rather generous, actually. Now I know better, and even before the new info, I could see they could use more. But I still want to do something better for them, so am looking for creative solutions, as we have dog, cats, small rooms in overfull house, kids...

Over here, ebay is full of companies selling expensive cages, not people selling off theirs at reasonable prices. Most of the cages, even then, are tall and narrow compared to what is ideal for degus. Making a wooden, diy cage is just not in the cards right now (life and medical issues are complicated for both me and hubby).

So, I was wondering, to give our little goo-boys room to really run, what if we took one of these very tall cages, and made a series of ramps and levels continuous up its height, like a parking garage, so they could run up and up and up, round and round? Would they get dizzy? I would still add in the branches and huts and tunnels and all their "stuff" to provide entertainment while leaving the running path top to bottom accessible.

Is this a next-best solution until we can do better? Or should we just wait and save the money until life settles (which could be quite a while, been two years since the accident already)? Wood is relatively cheap here, so adding in shelves and ramps is not a big deal, and easy in a wire cage (we accessorize the parakeets all the time).

[deguconvert]

Have a look at this thread, deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Cage&action=display&thread=8982 where one of our members actually turned her tallish cages over onto their sides and then fashioned long full levels, which greatly increased the running room her degus have. It was a very ingenious approach. Would it work for you?

[winic1]

Without rearranging the house, we don't have that kind of linear space right now. If we did, we could get another of the current cage and easily hook them side by side, but there is no place long enough to put it on (can't be at ground level because of cats. One doesn't care, other is STILL obsessed with them after 2 years, squirt bottle treatment, and even sneak attacks with son's nerf guns (only the lower powered ones, don't yell at me)). Hubby is soon to have wrist surgery and will not have any reasonable use of his hand for at least 4 months, so rearranging house not likely to happen soon. Son is 13 and can help me cut & screw boards, so maybe we start with upright cage and move on to sideways later on after life gets back to normal...