De-slippery-fying ideas

[Sefka]

I got Harvey an upgrade
It's a Barney cage from Zooplus and as far as I can tell, he likes it But the ramp that leads up to the shelf is really smooth. The first time I put him in there, he couldn't walk up it. He climbed the bars to get to the shelf and when he tried to go down the ramp, he slid! I've piled up the substrate to make the ramp less steep and it's a bit better but he still slides down it sometimes and clearly doesn't like it.

So I've been thinking about how to make it less slippery.
Things I've tried.
-Using a stanley knife to score grooves into it. Didn't work - the wood got a bit splintery and the grooves were too narrow to be effective.
-Wrapping a strip of card around it to make 'rungs'. Worked fine until Harvey shredded the card to add to his nest.

Things I'm considering.
-Wrapping something less edible around the ramp to make rungs. Not sure what, though.
-Getting some wood strips to make steps. Can't think of a safe way to attach them.
-Replace the ramp with something else. But what?

I see the Barney cage mentioned a lot on these forums. Has anyone else had and solved this problem? Or got any ideas for me?
Let me know!

Sx

[Razor]

I came across this for something else, but I suppose it could work. Try gluing ice cream sticks like the rungs of a ladder. The tutorial I saw used a glue gun to hold it down. guessing it's safe since the whole surface is glued down. So there's not really a chance for the hamster to manage to reach the glue in any case, and its flat enough that even if chewed on, it shouldn't be able to get to it.

[cypher]

I've done the same with lolly sticks or small dowels pins, just use pva glue or any safe wood glue, & it works well.