Tall cage set ups

[flowerfairy]

I have the borneo xl cage for my long haired black eyed cream syrian hamster, Arun. I !ove the cage with its large opening front door and big top door but it is so tall.

I used loads of hammocks but Arun has chewed one of the straps so I took them out and made a table out of wood but it is a bit too tall ...

Ideas for shelving and for making a nice safe cage for Arun and his silent runner wheel would be very welcome.

It took a lot of swearing and stress and bad mooding to get the table thingy done. I am not much cop at diy.

[CMB]

If you get a piece of wood that is as thick or a little less as thick as the bar spacing. Then cut notches out of the front and back edge. These notches need to be cut where the upright bars are. The platform should slot in between the horizontal bars and be held in place be the vertical bars.

Have a look at photos of Barney cage or Alexander cage (close up if possible). This is how the platforms are held in place in those cages.

[flowerfairy]

Trouble is that there are soooo many uprights and i want to cove most of the cage. I do love the way the barney shelves slot in but when i tried to make one (as an extra for Gopal) i just couldnt get the bars and slots to line up properly.

[Pebbles82]

Goodness that cage looks great in the flesh! I think it's 57cm tall isn't it? You could go with a full level. I am rubbish at diy as well. But if you asked a diy store to make you a birch plywood piece of wood cut to the exact depth of the inside of the bars, and a couple of mm longer than the length of the interior bars, and a piece cut out at one side for a ladder/tunnel, then you could just fit a whole level in, cutting notches out of the long ends as CMB has said.

Other than that. I looked at working out a set up in the Borneo once. I think I went with something like April Pearl is thinking about for the Savic Plaza cage. I'll see if I can find my diagram!

[Pebbles82]

I found it but it doesn't make any sense to me now lol as I can't remember what all my coloured lines were on the graph paper!

I had two options. One was - have a shelf along both sides and another shelf along the back a bit higher up, overlapping the side shelves, with the wheel under the back shelf. And hemp mats on the shelves so any falls from the roof wouldn't mean landing on a hard edge of a shelf on the way down. And having most toys under the shelves.

The other one was having one side of the cage with cardboard or perspex about half way up (eg along one side and halfway along the front and back ish). And having very deep substrate at that end, and a shelf at the other end. A large cork tunnel next to the shelf (to lower fall height again and give a ramp up).

What I tried to do in Newtie's Barney cage was increase the floor height at one end by using the Rodipet shelf with the deep sided wave bath on top. It meant there was space under the shelf but the substrate was much higher up in the wave bath and could be banked up next to it so the substrate didn't fall out. It looked good but what I didn't bank on was Newtie deciding to nest under that platform which was really low and inaccessible! So I wouldn't recommend that.

It's getting shelves and getting them the right size that's the tricky bit.

If you went with my option 2 above it would be easier than having a full level made/fitted. Eg have a 50cm deep shelf made that covers half the cage and have the other half as deep substrate.

Or - those white corner shelves you have - more of those. It's quite a cheap option - I think they're about £6 each on Amazon. One in each corner would cover the depth of the cage and 80cm of the length. Then you would just need some smaller shelves to cover the open 20cm front and back. That would still leave a hole in the middle so that would need thinking about.

Or another idea I had was to just block off the roof! If you have the big front opening door, you don't really need the door on top. If the roof is blocked off then they can't fall from the roof. I sort of did that in the Barney for Charlie when he got old. I moved all the shelves up to roof level so effectively it was mostly a wood roof. A couple of mm from the top so no way a hamster could squeeze between the shelves and roof.

A bit of a waste of shelves possibly, but if you had the roof bars effectively lined inside with wood or other types of shelves and no fall risks, then you could set the rest of the cage up how you like And not worry about the height.

That's almost the same as getting a full level made.

Not sure any of that is much help!

[Pebbles82]

This was Ruby's set up in the Mamble, which is a bit taller than the Borneo, so that might give some ideas. I think she has almost all fall risks covered in there (and it depends if you know your hamster and what they do as to whether there need to be any other things to cover). I would maybe have something else in the front right corner.

Basically it's shelves or a full level I think.

Tall cage (rat cage) setup for hamster?

I also like your table idea! Have another go at it! Just a level with legs would be great.

[Pebbles82]

And finally! I think what I would do with that cage now, is reduce the interior height by having deep substrate. The cage has 7 or 8mm bars I think so the substrate won't fall out easily. Or you could put cardboard round the edges (say 6" high) to keep it in. It means it's a fiddle at cage cleaning time because you can't take the bar top off until you've removed some of the substrate, but you won't need to do that too often.

And then just have normal shelves and set up. I did look at the idea of sticking perspex to the inside of the bars but it was going to work out expensive and fiddly to get pieces the right size and join them together/stick them on.

[flowerfairy]

Oo lots of great suggestions serendipity. I like the shelf along each of the short sides and one along the back with the wheel under it. I can still use a hammock or two for the middle gap.

Have got hemp stuff all ready for soft landings. Arun loves racing about on the plywood shelf/table top thingy so quite excited to make him a kind of shelf track!

I love the borneo it is gorgeous.

Good to see the mamble again. Forgot that i still have one of them stashed away somewhere.