C&C My first C&C cage!

Ithilgil · Jun 4, 2012

I've made my first C&C cage today!

Rhode and Robin's former owner gave them a small cage (my C&C cage is four times as big as their old cage), so I've decided to find materials to make a makeshift C&C cage.

(I've tried searching for C&C cage kits but it was too expensive. The shipping fee costed more than the cage itself! )

I went to the dollar store to get zip ties, fleece (well, it was actually a dog blanket, but fleece is fleece), and a vinyl table cloth. Then I went to Canadian Tire to get a cube shelving unit for the grids.

There weren't enough connecters from the cube shelving unit set, so I had to use zip tie for some parts. I also tied the edges of the table cloth to the grids so that it wouldn't fall.

I'd say I did a pretty decent for my first try at making a C&C cage.

Here are some photos.

This is Robin.

She's the more courageous one out of the two. Rhode had hid in the hideaway first thing when I put them in. She hasn't come out yet.

I don't have a hay rack, so I've decided to use the frisbee that my local pet store was giving out instead. I got them orchard hayAnd I've replaced their old hamster food (can you believe that their former owners fed them that? ) with alfafa pellets (they're only 2 months old).

I still don't have veggie for them yet though since I only have frozen veggie, which I've heard isn't as healthy for them. My grocery shopping day is Tuesday (tommorrow), due to Tuesday student discounts.

This is Rhode, still hiding away.

The cage is still pretty empty :sorry:, so I'm going to buy and/or make more toys for them later.

~Ithilgil

MrWhistles · Jun 4, 2012

grats
can we's see the whole cage?
pretty pwease!!!! *big grin*

Ithilgil · Jun 4, 2012

MrWhistles said:
grats
can we's see the whole cage?
pretty pwease!!!! *big grin*

The lighting is pretty bad at the moment since it's really cloudy outside and it's already 6:20pm (I don't have celing lights, and my lamps aren't that great). And my webcam was acting a bit funny. I'll take more pictures tomorrow.

I really hope that my webcam works well enough. My camera phone's photos are of lower quality.

MissJean · Jun 4, 2012

How big did you end up making it?

I bet they love their roomy home! Good job!

Ithilgil · Jun 4, 2012

MissJean said:
How big did you end up making it?

I bet they love their roomy home! Good job!

Thx

Their cage is 2 x 4 grids. Accoriding to the Canadian Tire website, each grid is 15.5" x 14.75".

I'm not really sure if Rhode and Robin love their new cage yet since they still need to get used to their surroundings, but I'm really hoping that they would. Their old cage was as big as 1 x 1.5 grid - really small for two guinea pigs. So, they definitely have more room to run around now.

MrWhistles · Jun 4, 2012

Ithilgil said:
Thx

Their cage is 2 x 4 grids. Accoriding to the Canadian Tire website, each grid is 15.5" x 14.75".

I'm not really sure if Rhode and Robin love their new cage yet since they still need to get used to their surroundings, but I'm really hoping that they would. Their old cage was as big as 1 x 1.5 grid - really small for two guinea pigs. So, they definitely have more room to run around now.

awh
right now their probly thinking "oooohhhh scary. Its so big! *peeks out for flying predators* why does the food haveta be so far?? *plays rock, paper, scissors to see who goes out 1st*

Whistles hid for a few hours too. But he eventually came out/explored.

Ithilgil · Jun 4, 2012

MrWhistles said:
awh
right now their probly thinking "oooohhhh scary. Its so big! *peeks out for flying predators* why does the food haveta be so far?? *plays rock, paper, scissors to see who goes out 1st*

Whistles hid for a few hours too. But he eventually came out/explored.

LOL, yeah, most likely.

Robin is the braver one; she doesn't hide as much as her sister. Even though Rhode ventures out for food from time to time, she's the first one to dart back into their hideaway whenever I move. Robin does too, after staring at me like a deer staring at the headlights.

They're really fast buggers. Faster than my dwarf hamster, Leo.

When I try to give him floor time without his hamster ball, he always escapes

(Hence, I'm not going to give him floor times any more without his hamster ball). Obviously, I've always managed to catch him (though I had a hard time doing so simply because he keeps going under my bed; luckily, I'm silm enough to slide underneath it, but it still takes effort).

I don't think I'll be able to catch either of my girls if they managed to escape. This is one of the reasons why I've decided to build them a C&C cage. They get lots of space to run, and I won't be scared they'd run off. :silly:

Unless they somehow climbed up the grids. I've read that there were guinea pigs who climbed out of their C&C cage in the forums.

Ithilgil · Jun 5, 2012

Here are the promised pictures of my C&C cage. Sorry for the poor quality. I don't have a camera, and my good-quality webcam was acting up, so I had to use something else.

This is how it looks like overall - blue striped table cloth, black and grey fleece (the dots you see are actually dog paw prints). See, it's pretty empty. I'm going to buy more fleece to make them some toys.

Their hideaway is place inbetween the two areas.

The black area is their kitchen. It's rather messy. :crazy:

The grey area is their, sadly enough, :sorry: near empty playground. There's a red/orange/yellow chew toy in there as well, but you can't see it in the photo because I was facing the wrong way.

You can't see my Rhode and Robin because they darted away into their hideaway as soon as I stood up from my chair.

MrWhistles · Jun 5, 2012

better than no pictures!!! xD
I bet they just love the space

Ithilgil · Jun 5, 2012

I've gotten them a few toys today - a pink plastic ball, a stuffed lamb, and a stuffed alligator. I hope they like them. I'm planning on making them a cozy cup or something. I'm not really sure yet. I still need to brush up my sewing skill.

And I've also bought them some baby carrots, romaine lettuce, and parsley. They seemed to really like the carrots. Rhode and Robin ate them all within ten minutes.

lol They were so confused when I threw away their leftover food. So cute!

They kept squeaking, and following my hand as I tried to clean up the hay they had flung all over the black fleece.

Even Rhode the shy one came out.

They kept darting away when I tried to pet them though. :weepy:

I've found that they had even peed and pooed in the hay tray. How could they even stand eating the things covered in their excretion? :crazy:

I cleaned it before putting new hay in it.

The one eating is Robin; and the one pulling at the threads of the fleece, partially hidden in their hideaway is Rhode.

I tried taking fullbody pictures of Rhode, but she always dart away when she sees me moving towards them. (Except when I was changing their food. They were so cute!! )

CavyFamily · Jun 5, 2012

I finally got my first C&C cage as well! When I picked it up ( a friend made it for me) I didn't know that it was actually to small for 2 piggies (it was a 2x3) Now I have been duteously working on making it a 2x4 and the coroplast was in bad shape so I replaced it with tempered hardboard (can't find cheap coro here) and wrapped that in two layers of vinyl, then a layer of uhaul pads wrapped in flannel and then fleece! I am posting before and after pics to show the progress. I also went and bought more fleece blankets to make things for the piggies as well as their fleece forest. So excited but my fingers hurt so bad from the zip ties lol.

Now please do not post comments about the size of the cage, I am currently working on fixing it. This is just reference to show all I have done. I am EXTREMELY EXCITED, my girls are gonna LOVE it!!!

I will post progress pics in a bit, my fingers really hurt LOL!

Ithilgil · Jun 5, 2012

Wow. The cage looks great! What's in the green box and do your guinea pigs really climb up the ramp to get more hay?

CavyFamily · Jun 5, 2012

Ithilgil said:
Wow. The cage looks great! What's in the green box and do your guinea pigs really climb up the ramp to get more hay?

The box was a tissue box that held hay but is no longer in the cage. Yes they do climb up the ramp but the loft has been enlarged as well so not sure where I am going to put the hay now lol.

Ithilgil · Jun 5, 2012

Ah. I see. Could you upload pictures of the new cage later?

MrWhistles · Jun 5, 2012

Most piggies pee in their hay. Thats why alot of users(like myself) use a homemade hay rack. Guinea pigs eat their poo as well. It helps their digestive tract.

Here is a photo of Whistles hay rack. Well, its actually of his whole kitchen xD

319756_2171732510031_1748311865_1036205_1153036927_n.jpg

boofp · Jun 5, 2012

awesome

Ithilgil · Jun 6, 2012

MrWhistles said:
Most piggies pee in their hay. Thats why alot of users(like myself) use a homemade hay rack.

How do you make a hay rack? With the leftover grids?

CavyFamily · Jun 6, 2012

So here is the new improved set up, if you refer back to my previous post you can see all the changes I made. My girls were popcorning all over the place, well Anya tried to but she is very pregnant. lol
Not done yet, ran out of grids. Hoping to score some again like I did this time around. I imagine this is gonna be a work in progress for a while. LOL

So I am still working on cuddle cups, cozies and today I am gonna bust out the fleece forest. But this is the somewhat finished product until I get more grids that is LOL. I would also love to know how to make a grid hayrack, if anyone has the answer.

Ithilgil · Jun 6, 2012

Wow. It looks great. I'm also planning on making a double-layer cage, but only when the grids are on sale. I bought mines (16 grids) for CAN$35, but that's only because there wasn't any other stores which sell grids nearby.

Did you bend the grids to make a ramp? Or did it come like that? If it's the latter, where did you find it and how much did it cost?

I still can't really believe that, over the past three days since I've gotten Rhode and Robin, I had spoiled them way more than I had with all my other pets.

hmy:

CavyFamily · Jun 6, 2012

My husband bent them for me and then I zip tired them together. I then put a piece of coroplast in it and tied fleece to eat so it can be removed and washed. It is large enough for my pregnant pig and safe enough for the babies when they come.

I found my extra grids on Craigslist (21 grids for $10 USD), I would suggest looking there or maybe seeing if you have a thing like freecycle.com.

I know exactly what your saying! My husband is like, Is it done yet? I said nope! LOL. He likes watching them popcorn around though so I wont get to much resistance lol

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C&C My first C&C cage!

Ithilgil

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Ithilgil

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