Monkey Baring

[M3gan]

hi Guys! My 3 month old male Syrian always monkey bars. He climbs to the top of his 22 inch tall cage (Its 100x50 btw.) and once at the top flings himself backwards and falls. I am seriously worried he will hurt himself. I have tried everything I think. Chews where he climbs, olive oil, taking him off them while he is climbing... I am willing to get levels and hammocks but will not be able to buy a tank as the cage i have was expensive . Any tips welcome! Others : He has a 12 inch wheel, 12 cm of bedding, lots of toys, hideys, chews, rocks and natural climbing surfaces.
He also gets 15 minuets in a ball, 30 mins of playpen and cuddles throughout the day. Sometimes he gets free ranging.

[Shannonmcn]

Hammocks? This one from viovet is cheap and really big and will catch him if he flings himself off the bars. Some hams are just a bit silly and will climb as high as they can with no thought for getting back down!

[M3gan]

Thanks Shannonmcn, I would still love to see him stop, or atleast do it not as much.

[Bertiebobbins]

One of mine does the same thing, really the best thing is to add extra levels either with hammocks or shelves or something to reduce the distance your ham can fall. Unfortunately you can't train a ham to stop doing things lot simply tell them not to so you have to work around them! Mine has a combination of swinging platforms from ranch house cages (on UK eBay), sputniks and various other shelves and platforms. Be careful with cloth hammocks as they can be fatal for hams if they chew them and the fibres cause a blockage. Mine is a chewer aswell so the cloth hammocks were no go for him.

By the way my "spiderham" is a bit older than yours, about 4.5 months, and he has calmed down since he became a grownup but he still likes a good old monkey barring session! His cage is pretty much the same dimensions as yours, maybe a few cm lower but the same base size.

[Fluffagrams]

My girl thinks that hanging upside down will get her more seeds and being a Chinese, she's a great climber but she's also got a lovely hammock that is a soft place for her to land on if she were to fall. Thankfully, she only seems to monkey bar across in the area that is covered by the hammock but I really want to get her another one to cover the whole meshed area of the roof.

[M3gan]

Yes my cage came with two shelves, but they were high up and he jumped off of them. Not much better eh? I have ordered 2 hammocks and am heading to ikea soon so i will do some damage!

[Pebbles82]

You'd probably find if you had a full level in there he'd stop bothering to climb up there! Kind of contrary behaviour. Anything that makes it more difficult perhaps. I think overlapping shelves are a good idea if you can't manage a full level in there - so there is no gap between them to fall down - and have a hammock over the lower one of the overlapping shelves so he can't fall too far down onto the shelf. So for a 100cm cage you'd need two shelves at least 50cm deep so there was no gap to fall down - one shelf slightly lower than the other. If he's a chewy hamster I'd be careful with cloth hammocks. If he started to chew them they'd have to come out again.

Interesting though that CC is a chewy hamster but doesn't chew her hammock. Whereas Charlie isn't a chewy hamster and insisted on chewing the one I got him and it had to come out. He always tries to chew anything nice and soft or fleecy - presumably to pouch some and take it back to his nest.

[M3gan]

Does anyone know where i can get a 50cm level for a bar cage? thanks

[Pebbles82]

Ranch house cages sell shelves in all different sizes and will make one a specific size as well of you want.

This one is 30cm deep and you select your width (eg 20 inches for a cage that is 50cm deep - or you might want to go slightly smaller to make sure it fits).

30cm Deep Solid Pine Shelf Platform Rabbit Guinea Pig Chinchilla Cage | eBay

If you look on their 'other items' they have all kinds of shelves. Or if you contact them they would probably make two to the size you want. If two 50cm ones is difficult to get sorted then you could do something similar to the racetrack shelving in the Alexander cage. eg have two 30cm or 40cm shelves, then a couple of flat pieces of wood going across those at the front and back, so you just have a hole in the middle and have the hammock over that. Zooplus have this grass hammock that is supposed to be safer than fabric if chewed but it might need some stronger clips to hold it up.

Natural Grass Hammock for Pets at zooplus

Or you could have four 25cm shelves. Two would only attach to the front and back parts of the cage - the other two would attach on 3 sides.

25cm Deep Solid Pine Shelf Platform Ferret Chinchilla Guinea Pig Degu Rat Cage | eBay

This photo (scroll down) shows what I mean about two shelves with two pieces of wood across and a hole either in the middle or at one end, for access. It's an adapted Alexander cage

hamster advice please - Rabbits United Forum

This is what the cage looks like before being adapted

Great deals on small pet cages at zooplus: Alexander Small Pet Cage

There is another option - depends which is easier. It's something I've thought of before for a tall cage. Instead of having shelves to reduce the height, you could increase the height of the base and the depth of the substrate so it isn't such a big drop. By sticking pieces of plexiglass or cardboard round the inside of the bars. Stuck on with aquarium sealant, say about 10cm high. So you then have deep substrate and a lower top. It means you would need to spot clean with the barred top left in place - ie through the doors. But I spot clean through the cage door anyway and only ever take the top off for a full clean. With deeper substrate you wouldn't need to do full cleans very often and could just spot clean the top layer of substrate - plus your hamster could dig some tunnels. Anything heavy like ceramic items or heavy wood items would need supporting though, in case they were tunneled under, but that's not too difficult to sort.

Or you could do a bit of both, have one end of the cage with plexi round the inside of the bars and deeper substrate, fenced off by a bendy stick bridge/fence or a cork tunnel. And the other end with a shelf or two.

The plexi option might be a bit of a fiddle but would probably work out cheaper. I found these pieces of plexi you can get that don't need cutting (or don't need cutting much and are thin so you can use scissors). They are 20cm by 25cm, so if you cut them in half so they're 10cm tall, each panel would cover 50cm cage width. So you would need 6 of them (or 7 to allow for overlap).

[M3gan]

I have bought two 25 cm levels and im ordering several different types of hammocks. My problem is the cage i have is ment for a guinea pig thus the bridges to the levels are farr tooo steep. any ideas on how to change that?? I was thinking sticking lolipop sticks on a foot holes things.