Corner (or L-Shaped) Cage?

Corner cages are fine so long as they meet the size requirements. Try to go as big as possible, consider moving furniture around. If you could provide a picture of the room that you are working with then we could offer ideas as to what you could do to make the best possible cage for your future piggies.

By the way, welcome to the forum. Take note of the stickys located at the top of each subforum, they hold invaluable information. Also Check out guinealynx ( Guinea Lynx :: A Medical and Care Guide for Your Guinea Pig ) for the best medical and care info around.

There are many ways you can do corner or l-shaped cages that meet the piggies' space requirements.

A triangle that is 3.5 grids on the two equal sides (along the walls) would be 8.3 square feet, which most people would agree would be an acceptable size for 2 sows. (This is a little more floor space than a traditional 2x3). The long side on this cage would be 5 grids. It's probably a bit trickier to cut the coroplast for a cage like this but you could barely get it onto one 4' x 8' sheet of coro if you put the long side of the triangle along the long side of the coro. If I had more than one pig in a cage like this, I'd make a loft to take some of the "stuff" -- even though the loft doesn't count for the floorsize computation, I do think it helps increase the "effective" floorsize if you can get some of the toys or hidey houses or food/potty area off the main floor.

An L-shaped cage could be used to make a cage that is equivalent to a 2x4 but only needs to go 3 grids along each wall -- it would look like a 3x3 with one corner cut out. Another way to think about it is a 2x3 with a 1x3 added on to one of the long sides. You need to have space for a 2x3 along both walls to do this, so if you don't even have space to do a 2x3, you wouldn't be able to do this, but the nice thing is that if you do have space you end up with a 2x4 equivalent cage without having to go 4 grids in any one direction.

If I made a corner cage like that, I'd make a diagonal in the cut out corner, so that only 1/2 a square was cut out. That way it's still out of the way for walking by, but doesn't put a hard corner into the middle of their cage.

bad ascii images attempted below:

Oh, looking at my images, I realized you could also do something halfway between my "L-shaped" and "diagonal corner" shape -- go out 3 grids in either direction along the walls, then come out from the walls one grid in each direction, and then create a diagonal across like this:


The size of this cage is halfway between a standard 2x3 and a standard 2x4, so it's larger than the 3.5 x 3.5 triangle, but smaller than the other corner designs I showed.

Thank you so much! These will actually work out reasonably well for the space I have in mind. I just don't have five feet of contiguous wall space, but I do have a good three and a half, and a nice corner near my desk where my planned-for fuzzballs and I can interact and bond.

Now, to find that coroplast, and a rescue group. I'm hoping I won't have to resort to linoleum!

EmmyCee said:

Now, to find that coroplast, and a rescue group. I'm hoping I won't have to resort to linoleum!

Click to expand...

I bet you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy the coroplast turns out to be to find. I live in a pretty rural area, and found some at the second place I called (the first place had it too, but only in 18" wide strips).

Call sign printers. Tell them that you are looking for it to make a guinea pig cage, so that they know you aren't going to take their coro and make your own sign (thus costing them the sign-making business). Places sometimes mark up their plain coro to cover the lost sign-making business they imagine when they sell a plain sheet of coro, so if you tell them what you want it for, you should be able to get a better price.

Hey there! I have revamped my cage several times, space became an issue when I had to seperate the boys (and I had adopted girls). This is the cage that they all have now, and I'm pretty happy with it, it's L-shaped.

Bailey is in the 2X4 across the back wall, Reeses extends out from that (so they share that small section of the wall, and can still be neighbors while being seperated) As you can tell Reeses area is raised and the grids provide storage underneath. The girls area is on ground level, staggered below Bailey. It's not entirely space friendly, but it's definatly a good compromise, and it's a whole lot easier to clean then having a 3 story condo, LoL
(This was before I cleaned everything up, hence the messy floor, but you get the idea)

oh great post! I am already thinking about revamping our cage to a corner unit.

I had a corner 2x6. Here is a picture of it, its still the same size as a normal 2x6 but it saved loads of room.

Oh, excellent. That's a very nice looking cage, and it's a great visual for possibilities. I love the ramp!