Hey all,
I made a little hammock for my dwarfs that only consists of sisal rope and therefore is quite safe for them to nibble on! So here is how I did it (please excuse me for the funky DIY, I'm not that experienced lol!):
You need a thick plank of wood (I used a chopping board), nails, hammer, ruler, pencil and of course a bale of sisal rope.
For dwarf hamsters a hammock of 10 by 10 cm should be big enough. Draw thinly a square of your desired size, and on the horizontal lines, mark where the nails should go with small dots. I got my nails 0,5 cm apart from eachother, which is pretty tight to weave:
Then, carefully (!) start to jam in the nails on the dots:
When all the nails are in, tie a tight knot on the far down-right nail, and leave a good 15 cm on the back of it:
Now you can start weaving the rope up and down, around every single nail. I weaved mine quite tight, but take notice that the tighter you weave this part, the harder it is to weave the second part:
When you finished weaving vertically and end up at the last nail, go totally around that nail and start weaving horizontally. You should put the threat above and below the vertical threads, all the time. Double check that you're not doing an above-above or below-below (happened to me some times!):
Push the first horizontal thread as far up as possible. Now turn the thread you are weaving with around, and make sure that you're weaving the opposite of the thread above. So where the 1st thread is going above-under-above-under, your second thread should go under-above-under-above. Keep on weaving like this, and remember to push every single thread upwards so it becomes nice and tight:
When it gets harder to weave, you can remove the hammock from the nails (except from the one it is tied on). This should make the last weaving a little bit easier:
When you are done, tie the weaving thread tightly in the corner you end up with in a double knot. Now you can use seperate threads to make the 'tie-handles':
And tada! you're done and ready to put it in the cage.
The first reaction of Runner:
It might be some effort to put into, but it is a nice little hammock, the hamsters have implemented in their ''I'm crazy I'm crazy look how fast I can run anywhere'' running route. Even though I was more hoping they would sleep in it, but I guess it still has a funny smell which is not totally theirs yet.
I have spend about a good hour on this, and I will make another one when my big cage arrives this week so they both have one to play with!
DIY Sisal rope hammock! (note - many pics)
Re: DIY Sisal rope hammock! (note - many pics)
xx
Linear Mode
