Midwest Purchasing a MW cage what do I buy with it?

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

I found the MidWest cage on Amazon and decided to buy it (well, will be tonight) Currently I use a store bought cage that sits on top of my dresser. I don't think the MW cage will fit on my dresser so where do you guys set yours? Will the floor work? Also what should I buy with it? Is there any attachments or anything that should be going along with the MW cage that makes it easier to use or anything? Thanks!

Oh and I will be using fleece for the first time, does this cage have anything to keep the fleece from being dragged around the cage?

bpatters · Nov 7, 2014

How many pigs do you have? A Midwest cage is barely large enough for one pig, and pigs need buddies of their own kind.

You may also find that fleece won't work well in a cage that small -- the bigger cages do much better with fleece than smaller ones.

You can build a cubes and coroplast (C&C) cage MUCH cheaper than you can get a Midwest one, and configure it however you want it. See the Main tab at the top of this page for making your own, or www.guineapigcagesstore.com to purchase one.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

I previously owned a C&C cage and bought everything the cheapest I could and the price came out at about $70 (2x4). I looked on that site and the smallest one is still close to $60. MW is about $35, so not sure how C&C is much cheaper haha. Please explain though, if it somehow is cheaper I'd definitely look into it!

I understand a bigger cage is waaay better for the piggies but for someone short on cash and desperately wanting to get her piggies out of a store bought cage, Midwest should be good for now..

And I have 2 girls full grown

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

Well you can get a box of grids for $20 or less, and the coroplast from Home Depot is only $14. That comes to $34 for a basic 2x4 C&C cage, which is a much nicer size than a Midwest. You can keep the cage on the floor or put it on a table or grid stand.

The Midwest has an optional divider, which I would not recommend using. It sections off the space to make essentially an even smaller running space. To use fleece in a Midwest, you can clip to the sides of the cage or sew liners that stay in place themselves. You wouldn't want to have just loose fleece.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

pigger123 said:
Well you can get a box of grids for $20 or less, and the coroplast from Home Depot is only $14. That comes to $34 for a basic 2x4 C&C cage, which is a much nicer size than a Midwest. You can keep the cage on the floor or put it on a table or grid stand.

The Midwest has an optional divider, which I would not recommend using. It sections off the space to make essentially an even smaller running space. To use fleece in a Midwest, you can clip to the sides of the cage or sew liners that stay in place themselves. You wouldn't want to have just loose fleece.

I'll do that then

I was looking into the Midwest cage actually and now I see it's not even that good of a deal! I'd end up spending more getting all the accessories and what not for it (the canvas bottom for example)

Thanks you guys!

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

baileydz said:
I'd end up spending more getting all the accessories and what not for it (the canvas bottom for example)

I'm not really sure what accessories you're talking about? The only extras I know of that you can get for a Midwest are the divider and the lid. The canvas bottom comes with the cage.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

pigger123 said:
I'm not really sure what accessories you're talking about? The only extras I know of that you can get for a Midwest are the divider and the lid. The canvas bottom comes with the cage.

The divider and the lid are what I meant by accessories. I'd end up spending about $60 to buy all of that (cage $30, divider $20(?), lid $20(?) it's better I just buy a C&C. It'd be bigger and better quality I'm sure.

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

As I said, the divider is not necessary and not recommended, so that would not be an expense. The lid is only necessary if you have small children or other pets, since guinea pigs don't need a lid otherwise. I do think you should get a C&C cage though.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

pigger123 said:
As I said, the divider is not necessary and not recommended, so that would not be an expense. The lid is only necessary if you have small children or other pets, since guinea pigs don't need a lid otherwise. I do think you should get a C&C cage though.

I would end up needing the divider only for when they eat. One tends to hog the food bowls so I'd just put the divider up when they ate.

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

Oh, okay. With the C&C cage you'll have enough extra grids leftover to make a temporary divider for that. Each box comes with 17-23 grids, and a 2x4 cage only uses 12 of them.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

Awesome! Do you know how many grids I'd need to build a stand for the 2x4? I'm terrible at math and I can't seem to figure it out :/

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

To make a full 2x4 C&C cage with a grid stand you'd need a total of 34 grids, which is 2 boxes. That's for the cage and the stand, the stand itself uses 22 grids.

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

pigger123 said:
To make a full 2x4 C&C cage with a grid stand you'd need a total of 34 grids, which is 2 boxes. That's for the cage and the stand, the stand itself uses 22 grids.

Is there a video or a tutorial on how to make the stand? I know how to make the cage, just can't figure out the stand

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

I don't know about a video, but it's pretty simple. It should end up looking like this: https://www.guineapigcagesstore.com/cage-stand-large#.VF1F4og8KrU

baileydz · Nov 7, 2014

Ah! Thank you, I feel stupid now haha. I should have thought to look there!

pigger123 · Nov 7, 2014

No worries! It is kind of hard to picture what the stand should look like in your head.

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Midwest Purchasing a MW cage what do I buy with it?

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