My 3 degu girls absolutely love eating fresh herbs. Mint, basil, and chives are their favourites and chives seems to be the one they like the most. I've been thinking of ways to enrich their environment so while I was eating my birthday breakfast this morning I set about making what I like to call the Fresh Herb Degu Eatery. A portable herb garden that can be put in their play area for them to nibble on.
To make the Fresh Herb Degu Eatery you will need:
- An empty 2 litre ice cream tub and lid.
- Wire mesh with holes approx. 13mm
- Wire cutters
- Thin wire
- Pliers
- Craft Knife
- Thick Needle
- Scissors
- Fresh herbs or herb seeds of your choice
- Soil or compost
It takes approximately an hour to make and can be used straight away with fresh herbs. Of course, if you decided to plant seeds you will have to wait until they have grown.
Let's get started…
Step 1 — Prepare the Lid & Mesh
The first thing you need to do is cut a hole in the ice cream tub lid. I used a craft knife for this. Don't cut the hole as big as the lid. Make sure that you leave a fair amount of border because you need space to attach the mesh.
Step 2 — Cut your mesh
You will also need to cut a piece of wire mesh to size. It needs to completely cover the hole in the ice cream tub lid. Don't make it too big (see photo in step 3) or you won't be able to put the lid on the tub.
Before we attach the mesh you will need to use it as a guide in order to punch small holes in the lid. Wire will be then pushed through these to hold the mesh on. I actually used the thin wire I'll be using to attach the mesh to make the holes as the lid is quite thin. You could use a needle though. Check the photo in step 1 for positioning of holes.
Step 3 — Attach the Mesh
Next we're going to attach the mesh to the underside of the lid. This is so that any sharp bits are hidden within the tub. Cut small pieces of thin wire and feed through the holes you made in the lid. Use your pliers to twist the wire in order to secure the mesh. This is particularly fiddly. Use your fingers to twist if you prefer and make sure not to split the lid.
Once the mesh is attached check to see if the lid still fits on to the tub properly.
The photo above shows you what your tub should now look like.
Step 4 — Make tub plant friendly
We are essentially making a plant pot, an ice-cream tub kind of plant pot, and you can't have a plant pot without holes. Let's fix that!
Use something to put a few holes in the bottom of the ice-cream tub to allow for drainage when watering. I use a pair of old scissors and heat them up on the hob so that it melts the plastic and makes making the holes easier. In fact, I use this method to put holes in all of my plant pots as needed.
Step 5 — Add your herbs or seeds
All that's left is to fill the tub full of soil and add your herbs or seeds. The easiest to do is sow a few herb seeds of your choice, water, and wait for them to grow. The downside is that your degus will have to wait awhile before they get to eat from it.
If you want to be able to use it straight away you can plant up a few fresh herbs like I have in the photo above. It is quite fiddly as you have to try and get the herbs through the mesh without damaging them. Chives are the easiest for doing this as they are long and thin and one plant is made up of lots of small plants.
Just separate them in to individual plants, push them down through the mesh, and then raise the lid slightly so you can get your hands in enough to cover the roots with soil.
Making this eatery from an ice-ream tub means that the degus can't eat the whole plant because of the mesh and which in turn will give the herbs time to regrow. It also means that your degus can't get at the soil, dig about, and generally make a mess.
Why not try planting some grass or other degu safe greenery?
IMPORTANT: Don't leave your degus unsupervised when using the eatery as it is only plastic and they will try and chew it.
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