Question about making a door for my cage

[courtnik1]

Hi everyone! I am new here, and I hope I do not upset anyone if I repeated a post that may have been answered before. My husband and I just finished putting together our very first cage. We bought grids at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, coroplast from a sign company, and shelving for a top. Since we have cats, it is very important for us to have a top to our cage. Since this is the case, we are unsure on what we need to do in order to create a door to get the guinea pig in and out. We thought about just lying the shelving on top of the cage, but I just do not trust this with the cats and I want them to be as safe as possible.

Can someone please give us some simple advice since this is our first time, on how we can create an effective door? Thank you all very much!

[cam767]

I am not sure how it would work with the shelving (I think it has a lip that may interfere) but what we did was instead of using the connectors in the front of the cage we only used zip ties and used the front as the doors (kind of like french doors). We got the electrical zip ties (they are velcro) for where the 2 doors in the front middle joined together to secure it. The whole front could open up and you could slide the coro in and out for easy cleaning.
I think other people who used shelving made it so that they had a flip top. You could use those same velcro ties to help secure the shelving to the sides of the cage for easy on, easy off.

Hopefully someone who used the shelving for a top can chime in with good ideas.

[courtnik1]

Thanks! That's pretty much what we ended up doing. You were right about the lip on the shelving. It seems to be working out good though! Our cat is sleeping on the top and our piggy is running around the cage bouncing around. He seems to really enjoy it! Thanks for the help!

[partygirlha]

I"ve got a cat and 2 C&c cages with tops. I se shelving that is about 2inches longer on both sides than the cage is long - so, the long side had the lip, and the short side has a LOT of overhang, in case the cat moves anything. for the past 11 months this has worked. "if" I thougth my cat would move the cage top, I would zip tie the top along on long side to hold it in place and prevent slipping. If he started showing signs of lifting the top (very unlikly) I'd use binder clips or some other hook to hold it down.