Netherlands Cubes and Coroplast in Holland??

[Teria]

Argh. She called me back and said she had no success asking. Advised me to try a metal shop. How come people act like they've never decorated a store in their life? Sorry guys, I tried.

 

[Ball Lightning]

I did it! I have my own C&C now! How did I manage to do it? Well:

Cubes: search eBay for "wire storage cubes". You'll find lots of them, but only a few will ship to Europe. The shipping and handling costs are huge though: $25 for the product, $48 for S&H . For this price I got a nice number of 30 black grids with 30 connectors. With this I can make 2 2x4 cages if I want, and I will still have some grids left. Nice enough, I would say.
Cons: You have to have an eBay account, or know someone who had one. Plus you have to have Paypal. Fortunately, getting either account cost you no money.

Coroplast: Vikuprop is the name of the product that resembles Coroplast the most, but it is only sold to companies. So I had to find a company that buys from the manufactorer. I searched my ass out, hardware stores didn't heard of it, google didn't get me anything, I was desperate. Until I checked the list of this site again where to find it. It said sign stores... So I searched the yellow pages for "naamborden", and called the first store which happened to be a 5 minutes drive away from my place. I described the product, she didn't recognized the name, but reacted when I said the magic word Polypropylene. They had it!!! YES!!! They had some 100x140cm sheets (black) left from an earlies order, which they had spare. I could buy them for 7,50 euro (retail price for the company was 6, so I absolutely didn't feel ripped). It really was that easy.
Cons: They can't order whatever colour and numer you want for you, unless you are going to buy 25 sheets at once. So you have to be lucky if they got some spare. You have to take whatever colour they have. If they don't have any at that moment, just ask them to call you if they have. They get new orders frequently, so it wouldn't take too long.

All in all, I paid 63+15=78 euro for a 2x4 cage, with lots of options. I could make a 2nd level without paying extra, I could use the spare grids for fencing off the playground of the guys, I even could make a second 2x4 cage, if I buy some more sheets of Vikuprop.
I had a big pet store cage on my eye (140x75cm), but it costed 120 euro. Now I got a bigger cage for far less money, and it can be transported more easily, because I can break it apart and rebuild it at another place. Nice if you are going on a holiday and your mom has to take care of the cavies
The C&C cage is nice too, because you can split up in two if the cavies fight and really can't get along. Try splitting a pet store cage in two. That will be a LOT more difficult.

Conclusion: it can be done, you just have to know where so search.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Congrats on the new cage BL!
Please post a picture!

 

[Ball Lightning]

Congrats on the new cage BL!
Please post a picture!

I will, but I'm waiting for some more grids to split the cage and add 2 small second levels. It wil take another month for them to arrive. But I will post if it's done

 

[Ball Lightning]

Well, I did it! The coroplast (Vikuprop) is indeed as sturdy as they say and it is actually very easy to handle! I uploaded 4 photo's for this moment. I'm very happy with the cage.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Oh, well done, BL! I love it! I like the colors you used. Do the piggers like their new home?

 

[Ball Lightning]

Yep, they love it. It is nice to see that they move around all the time, instead of sitting and moving now and then. The hayloft is very well used, and they like to take a dive in the hay . I'm very glad I did the job and hope the cage will last forever (although I don't doubt that, it is very good material).

 

[Ball Lightning]

Oh, by the way: instead of scrubbing for minutes to clean the cage, I'm done in 15-20 minutes all together! The dividing wall can be flapped away, and then it's just replacing everything (newspaper, towels, fleece). There is no pee leaking whatsoever (until now), so the coroplast bottom don't have to be cleaned. Also, it doesn't smell if you replace the fleece every 4 days with this size of cage.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Yeah, it's so rewarding to see them running around in their new cage, isn't it?
Mine love their C&C too, my Doortje spends hours a day sleeping in the loft. She's so fond of her sleeping spot she chases all others that attempt to enter the loft away... she defends her territory with a vengeance lol.

 

[Ball Lightning]

Hey, is it possible to post a picture of your cage also? Also with cavies, I like to see doortje

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Sure! Hope this works...



This picture is quite old, but unfortunately I don't have any recent ones and no digital camera. The cage still looks essentially the same though. My boar Indy is also in this picture, sadly he passed away last May. So there's only five of them now, all girls. Anyway, from left to right, clockwise, starting with the big black blob: Indy, Doortje, Louise, Buffy, Thelma and Lara, enjoying dinner.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Hm, Doortje is a bit invisible in that one, let's see if I can find a better picture...

 

[Ball Lightning]

Both pictures can't be shown because of some error (bestand kan niet gevonden worden, kijk of u het juiste adres hebt ingevuld en probeer opnieuw...blahblah..)

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Oh darn! They did show up when I tried the links to see if they worked! Errrrr, I'll try to figure out how to fix it, that may take a while though...

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Okay now, let me try again. I think this is the link to my album in Yahoo photos. Both pictures are in the album and I added a few bonus ones .
Hope this works!

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/judithk75/detail?.dir=f665&.dnm=f83e.jpg&.src=ph

 

[citronsoul]

Great cage! I love all their little houses. It looks like a little village. The store I get my supplies from has similar types. But I think my boyfriend would kill me if I can home with even more hidey houses for the pigs. I've already got a closet stuffed with their supplies.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Oh good, you can see the pigtures!
Thanks citronsoul! I'm really pleased with my cage. I have had it for a couple of years now and the piggers love it!

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Hey Ball!

It seems your last post has vanished into thin air, so I'll just quote it here.

VERY nice cage! I love black cages! I also love black and red cavies

Hey, I'm spreading the word of C&C cages on Dutch fora now, and also
introducing fleece there They all react astonished, but some are
extremely enthousiastic and are trying it for a trial period. I am on the
"nationale cavia forum (NCF), a pretty nice forum with 500 users (of
which around 200 are very active, but it's enough and much for Dutch fora).
Are you on any Dutch forum Northern Light?

Thank you for your compliments on my cage BL!
I'm not on any Dutch fora, I find it hard to keep up with all the posts on this one as it is, I just can't find the time. I'm going to take a look at the NCF though. Could you please give me the webaddress? I can't seem to find it (and neither can Google)... Thanks!

 

[Ball Lightning]

the website is www.caviaforum.nl

There are a LOT of breeders though, and I sometimes have to be quiet just to keep the great spirit of the forum high... I could use some reinforcements

PS: if my last post vanished because of moderation, please let me know.

 

[dutchpiggy]

hi guys

I'm also from Holland, and looking for another way to build a great cage. Right now I have the biggest they had at the store, but I feel so sorry for my two boys.
Is there any other way to build a cage, I love the idea of beeing able to change the cage occasionally, like you can do with a C&C. I simply do not have the money to spend 80 euro's right now. Especially with a move planned soon.

any help would be welcome.