Wire mesh on the inside of Barney cage?

[sophiedoe]

So after thinking Kalli's bar chewing problems were over, she started doing it again. She rips off any cardboard overnight and it is just too time consuming to be re-doing it every day - I'd rather be using the time to be taming her! It is driving me crazy and I don't want her to hurt herself.

I had the idea of putting wire mesh on the inside of the bars, so that she can't get her nose through to chew. Has anyone had success with this? I was looking on the Wickes website and you can get 13mm and 6mm wire mesh, not sure which would be best as the metal looks pretty thin on the 6mm, but I am going to have a look.

Does this sound like a solution that would work? I'm running out of ideas and can't afford another cage, after this my only option would be a bin cage but I don't really want to do that as her current Barney cage is great!

Thanks again, sorry for posting about this yet again, it has been a huge problem!

[flowerfairy]

This thread may be useful

Managing Bar Chewers

It is frustrating when they get the bar biting habit.

[Pebbles82]

I don't think mesh would be a good idea. She is more likely to just cut her nose trying to chew the mesh. It's a pain. I know you made a couple of changes in the cage? Did you add more substrate? I would suggest putting loads in - it will give her something to do burrowing in it and building mountains with it. With the Barney cage having 7mmm bar spacing the substrate doesn't fall out of the bars so you can fill the base.

[sophiedoe]

I've gone through that thread previously, thank you though, flowerfairy.

Yes that was my worry, Serendipity. I'm going to get a different bottle so I don't need to have it sticking through the bars (as she mostly chews around the bottle area) but if that doesn't work I don't know what else to do. I switched out all the wood shavings and now the base is full of fitch. I kept some of the old fitch so things don't smell too different. She seemed fine going back in.