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Cage Ready for a real cage

llonka

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Hello!!

So I know this is horrible but our guinea pig Wally has been living in a pet store cage. I couldn't convince hubby to buy a C&C cage. Now I have some extra money so I can get one.

My question is, would it be cheaper to buy a cage from the cage store on here or on a certain auction website. (not sure if it's ok for me to mention the name) The one I am looking at is 3x2 for $62.00. It has grids on the top so it has a lid. (We have cats)

What do you all think?? Thanks for the advice in advance!
 

PrincessAngel

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If you do some bargin hunting you could make one alot bigger than a 2x3 for the same price. I am pretty sure the ones on Ebay and such are way over priced for the product you get. If you make your own you insure you have extra grids in case of emergency or for hay racks, hideys etc. If you do buy one online I'm pretty sure the ones sold through this website are way cheaper. I believe I saw a 2x3 for $56 and the most expensive is the 2x6 which is $88. Shipping will be pretty pricey as these are oversized. You probably want to get as big a cage as possible in case you decide to get your piggy a friend! Good Luck!
 

crazy4looney2n

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hmm.... would you be able to build it yourself? $18.00 for a box of crates and at the most $25.00 for an 8' x 4' sheet of coroplast. I used (2) boxes of crates because I wanted it on a stand so used some of the crates for a stand that doubles as storage and I know I have enough crates left over that if I needed to I could build a lid. That would be $61.00 and saves me on shipping and handling...

p.s., the size of my cage is 2 x 4.

another plus is that you then can choose the color of your coroplast and crates ;)
 
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Thor-Loki's mom

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So much cheaper to make it yourself, and as others have said, you then have the left over grids for hideys, hay racks and what not...heck even to fiddle around with to see if you want to change the set up.

Its really very simple to do. And insanely addicting! I still look at cages every single day on this page, I am always looking for ideas lol.

Goodluck :)
 

Ly&Pigs

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You can say Ebay, you just can't link to cages for sale on there.

It's always cheaper to buid it yourself. Check around your area to see how much a box of safe grids will cost, how much coroplast will be and for a lid you can get a piece of closet shelving and have it cut down to the size of your cage. You will need 2 pieces to make the lid.
 

Jodie

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I just built my first cage and It's so easy. Took a whole 20 minutes really! The cubes are cheap to buy. I paid about 20 dollars for enough to build a 2x6 enclosure and I also only paid 20 dollars for a piece of coroplast to make into the bottom. Just follow the simple measurements on the home page of this site! I still have enough left over to do something else with! So the whole cage cost me about 40 dollars.
 

Rnd210

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When I first did C&C cages I bought 2 boxes of grids which costed me $40.00 and since I was unsure of how I wanted my cage I held off on getting coroplast right away and used a vynol table cloth and shower curtains for a while until I decided how I really wanted to build my cage. I think I redid my cage that first month about 4 times so if I would have bought the coroplast right away I would have wasted quite a bit of it.

I also ended up buying 3 more boxes of grids before I finally bought coroplast and ofcourse I still had to redesign my cage again after that and I ended up wasting coroplast and buying more before I was finnished. So if you are building your first cage (building becomes addicting) I would suggest makeing it a few times with useing a shower curtain or vynol table cloth for a while until you know for sure what cage you going to do.
 

llonka

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Thanks everyone! I will keep shopping! Not sure where to get coroplast though.

I thought i'd get him a bigger cage first, then get him a brother. :)
 

crazy4looney2n

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you can google sign shops in your area to find the coroplast. The instructions are very easy to follow. I found the hardest thing was to get the coroplast home and I have a minivan. The second hardest thing was keeping my toddlers off the coroplast when I was measuring. You may find that your second hardest thing is keeping the cats off of it when you are trying to measure. I found it actually fun to build it myself and felt so accomplished afterwards. I now want to add a loft :D
 

Jodie

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you can google sign shops in your area to find the coroplast. The instructions are very easy to follow. I found the hardest thing was to get the coroplast home and I have a minivan. The second hardest thing was keeping my toddlers off the coroplast when I was measuring. You may find that your second hardest thing is keeping the cats off of it when you are trying to measure. I found it actually fun to build it myself and felt so accomplished afterwards. I now want to add a loft :D

I told the man at the sign shop what i was doing and he cut the coroplast to the exact measurements for me and scored it six inches around for me too!!! They have a special tool for doing that stuff and he did it for free! So all i had to do when i got home was fold it into a box and tape the corners! It was great!
 

MyLittlePiggy07

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I think it would be more worth it buy the coroplast and grids yourself. My cage is a 2x5 for my one guinea pig and costed me $20 for the grids and $10 for the coroplast. I called around to different sign shops to find the best deal for coroplast. I think I built mine for a great price & then you can built it which ever way you want.
 

PrincessAngel

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We bought 2 boxes of grids for about $13 piece and our coroplast cost us $10. I had my dad score and cut the coro for me so I wouldn't screw it up. Since then we have bought 2 more boxes of grids (not actually sure how many we have...) But my current cage only takes 16 grids so I have tons of extra laying around. We bought them before target switched the kind of grids they sold.
 

llonka

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So if I do buy online, should I just buy from here?? I think it would be easier for me to buy online rather than go to the store. Maybe i'm just lazy. :)
 

GuineaLove

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I bought my first one on line also. It is fairly easy to put together and it comes with all the pieces so you do not have to run out and look for extra parts. There is nothing wrong with going the simple route especially when it is your first cage. I love the cage I bought. I have expanded since then but this is a great way to start.
 

PrttyChngaderas

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Oh, it's SO much fun to make your own!!! I bought my 4x8 coroplast for $14. For that price my only choice was white, but, I was cool with that. For $11 dollars more, I could have gotten any other color) When I made my first C&C cage, I had no problem finding grids. However, in the last year (maybe more?) Target has stopped making the grids uniform in size. Now you get 9 with the correct size square holes and 14 with the holes WAY too big. I don't have a Sam's or costco membership so, I cant just go there. The grids with the holes too big are good for making the floor that the coroplast sits on and for making the base for storage. I would suggest buying two boxes of grids to have extra's just in case. Also, whenever I go to target, they always have boxes of open grids. All you have to do is take the box to an employee, tell them this box is open and they will mark it down 15%. NO, I never just open a box but, I do purposely search for open boxes. I am cheap like that. *laughs* I got two boxes last week for $12.25 a piece. They were on sale already and then got marked down because they were open.
 

llonka

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I think i'll just buy one online for now, so would a 2x3.5 be big enough for two piggies? I thought about combining my petstore cage with the new C&C cage.

So I looked at Walmart and I found some cubes for about $20 a box. I just don't know where I would buy the coroplast. Guess i'll have to call around and see.
 

llonka

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Rnd210 mention using shower curtains and table cloths. How would that work? Do you just lay down the shower curtain and then the towels, fleece? Poop doesn't get kicked out?? I may end up just doing that for now; I already have fleece I want to use.

Thanks for your ideas everyone!
 

Sirene

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I think i'll just buy one online for now, so would a 2x3.5 be big enough for two piggies? I thought about combining my petstore cage with the new C&C cage.

Unfortunately not - you will need at least a 2x4 for 2 pigs, and it should be 2x5 if you have boys. It really is super cheap and easy (and fun!) to make your own!
 

llonka

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Ok! So I found some cubes on Walmart's website for about $20. They are pink, but that's ok. If I got those, how would I use the shower curtain idea?

Thanks again!
 

PrttyChngaderas

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I have seen the shower curtain cage set up before and you get a thick curtain, place it on the floor and then do the bedding on top of that. You can kind of fold the curtain halfway up the grid and use binder clips to keep it in place. However, right now, I think that you can get coroplast in the GPStore cheap. they are selling pieces of it and you can tape them together with clear packaging tape or duct tape. The shipping on the pieces at the sale price is pretty inexpensive right now so you might want to take advantage of that.
 
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