[Lestette]

I had recently bought myself a new cage for my girls, and I am extremely happy with it. It's only flaw is that I didn't find it large enough. I love giving my girls as much space as I possibly cage, and this cage, I felt, wasn't enough.
So I set out today to buy some building materials and found some wonderful wire panels. I also bought some tile for the shelving.
The cage section that I made is meant to fit ontop of my exisiting cage. The section that I made is 30x15x30 inches. So according to the cage calculator, that can hold 3 rats. Added onto my other cage, I now have a cage that can hold 9 rats!
I will also be adding on some wire mesh, to prevent any escape attemps.
I also made it so the cage has a nice big door on it. The door measures 10.5 x 8 inches. So I have a nice big opening to scoop the ratties out

Anywho, so here are some pictures of the cage, both in the building process, as well as the finished product (minus the wire mesh).

So the finished product cost me a grand total of 40$!!!
Not bad I think Seeing the prices of some of the cages here, I think I did pretty well.

What do you guys think of my cage? (please be kind! lol)

 

[amandahoney]

where did you get the panels? are they something meant for animal cages or for storage? that's a really great idea. what's the wire spacing?

 

[aqualaureena]

I was in town today and I saw something very similar 4 a shop display. What sorta shop did u buy it from? I might try order somethin like this on the internet. Its good tho, much cheaper!

 

[Poppyseed]

I was thinking of those for my DIY cage at first, but the square spaceing seemed WAAY too big, large enough for even my two handers to fit their heads through . Yeah if anyone did that, plan to get some powder coated hardware cloth to zip tie over it, unless you have rats that aren't into escaping like mine.

 

[Lestette]

Thanks I bought the panels at a "Super store" where they sell almost everything. The bar squares are about 1in x 1in... so far too big for any ratties, which is why I have wire around it.
I love this cage and the girls seem to love it to, so I have no complaints.

 

[OnlyOno]

where did you get a door to fit that kind of storage cube? it's pretty neat.

 

[IceLore]

The 1in sq. holes are too big for my does, but I wanted to make a cage like that too. I hope it works out for you! Don't forget to post pics when you've got it all outfitted too.

 

[Lestette]

This is what the cage looks like now... all decorated, (for the time being anyways, I always add more stuff and change things, lol).

I tried not using the wire around the cage, but the girls could walk right through it.. The wire mesh however, makes it impossible for them to escape.
The door that I have on it as actually the door from the big cage on the bottom. There used to be a door ontop of the cage, but I removed the door so I could fasten this other cage ontop of it... So since the door wasn't inuse, I thought, what better than to attach to the new add on!
The door fits on their perfectly and I keep it closed with a wire spring.

 

[hydra]

i saw those pieces the other day at a friends house (totally unrealted to rats) and i thought it would be great for making a cage. awesome!

 

[Lestette]

Yea. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I was thinking of trying to build another one, just a little bit differently... but we shall see.

 

[Nazarath]

Very cool new cage! I think I only have one rat that wouldn't fit through the sqares LOL. I need fat rats LOL.

 

[tattered_teddy_bear]

You can get them at Target, when i built a cage with these i made a huge one. The spacing is MUCH too small for even young males, 1inX1in, perfect escaping squares. Since i couldn't find a big "base" part, i used 2 storage bins. I got 2 packages of the wire squares and then a box of "solid" cubes to use as floors. It was big enough for 9 rats but i forget the actual size of it, i think the squares were 14x14 though. Louie used to slip out of the cage whenever he wanted but didn't roam too far from his cage so i never put mesh over it. I ziptied everything after the little connectors since they're flimsy I just left a mesh piece out of the puzzle and made the door. I bought the tiny bungee's to hold the door closed and ziptied the top side of the square. The cage took about an hour to make.