Skip to main content

The Big Degu Cage Build - Part Nine

I only have one day left to try and get my cage complete if I want to get my degus on Friday. My helper (brother) has urgent work to do for clients so I've been left on my own to finish it off.

Shelf covered with ceramic tiles to help keep degus cool

Despite being on my own I got quite a lot done today. I made a chiller shelf from an old pine shelf, timber offcuts and a few ceramic floor tiles. This will help keep the degus cool as the room they will be in is a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house.

I also managed to lightly sand and varnish the interior one last time. This will help protect from anything that might get on the walls and it'll be wipe clean. The outside of the cage is also a lovely shade of 'sand' and purple to match the room.

Vinyl tiles on shelf to help protect MDF from degu pee

I also managed to to lay all of my vinyl tiles on the base and shelves but annoyingly I'm 2 tiles short so I'm going to have to buy some more of them tomorrow.

Ironically I have pretty much all of the accessories and essentials to go in the cage. I bought a huge 20kg bag of horse wood shavings, a bag of degu pellets, and a reptile branch earlier today. I've already got a water bottle, wheel, tunnels, hammocks, grass balls, and other play things. There's only Timothy Hay and a few other bits and bobs to get.

Just hoping I get finished in time. Tomorrow I have to attach the brackets to support the shelves, fix the mess guards to the fronts of the shelves and to holes between levels, hang the doors, attach bolts to the doors, screw in loads of eyelets so that I can attach the water bottle, bridges and ladders, tidy up the painting on the outside, and then fill it with wood shavings, bedding and all the accessories!

Wish me luck!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous30 September 2013 at 20:21

    I have to ask what type of sealant did you use to lay the tiles onto the wood? I've been trying to think of a good solution, but have been getting mixed opinions and results. Any insight would be appreciated! This blog has been so ver helpful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown2 October 2013 at 16:17

    Hi, sorry for the delay in replying.

    I used an ordinary pva based wood glue to stick the ceramic tiles down and only put it in the center of the tile, I didn't put anything between. I've since removed the tiles though and turned it back into a normal shelf. They were using it to wee on rather than as a 'chill' shelf... it was starting to gathering wee and wet straw between the tiles and was hard to clean. Now I just put a tile in the fridge if it's going to be warm and just put it in the cage somewhere.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Degu Versus the Wooden Wheels

When I bought wooden exercise wheels for my 3 girls I knew I was taking a gamble. Degus love to chew wood but in the back of my mind I was hoping that they'd realize that wheel destruction meant no running. After all, they are rather intelligent little rodents. Close up of damage After 6 months of little to no interest in chewing the wheels I thought I was on to a winner and had the only non-destructive degus in the world. This afternoon, after a morning out walking I came home to wheel destruction. Degu damage to Wooden Exercise Wheels 4 hours earlier they weren't particularly bad. Just some light gnawing around the edges and on the stands. Now they resemble something that's been, quite literally, blown apart by a grenade. It's like they woke up this morning and thought, "Right, degus. We're going to start chewing these wheels and we're not going to stop until they're gone!" It's a good job I didn't pay full price for the ...
1 comment
Read more

The Big Degu Cage Build - Part Ten

It's almost 7PM and I'm not finished. At 5:30PM, while hanging the doors, I realized that there were no more screws of the correct size left and the shop would be shut before I got there. So I have only the top doors hung. Before bed I'm going to finish the inside by adding branches, bridges, ramps, ladders and other accessories. Then I'll fill it with wood shavings and hay ready for my new family members. Tomorrow I'll be outside waiting for Wilkinsons to open so I can get some more screws before I go to the pet store and my dad will kindly hang the remaining doors while I'm out. Hopefully they won't have sold out of degus before I get to the pet store.
4 comments
Read more

From Babies Degus to Adults

It has been a long time since I last posted. I have a mountain of things to do related to my work and while I've had time to tend to my 3 girls, I just haven't had time to post anything new.
Post a Comment
Read more