Looking for a new cage set-up! Help!

Hi all,

I am wanting to redecorate my chinchillas' room. And I'm talking about the chin habitats when I say "redecorate."

Let me tell you my current set-up and why I want some help reworking it.

My chinnies live in two Chinchilla Mansions from Quality Cages - each one houses two male chins. They both have Flying Saucers which my chins honestly don't seem to use that much. I know they know *how* to use them because I've seen all four of them run on occasion, but they don't do it often at all. Anyway under both Chinchilla Mansions are those tough plastic mats that people use in offices if they have rolly chairs (the real name escapes me atm) that I put down to see if it would make vacuuming any easier (it does... but the chins manage to kick into the carpet too)

I've had the Chin Mansions for several years, had to replace a board or two, etc. and that has been okay. The chins have had jumping space and are happy.

However.
There is one huge factor that just kills me:

THE MESS.

I know chinchillas are naturally messy. They kick bedding, they can't control their poop, etc. But it seems like the Chinchilla Mansions from Quality Cage Co., as well as they've worked as homes, don't even have anything to even semi-help keep some of the mess in the cage.

Last night I visited Quality Cage.com and saw that they actually have "Chinchilla Guard sets" for the sides of the cages. Has anyone tried these? Do they really help keep some of the mess under control or can the chinchillas easily kick bedding out from under them/does bedding get stuck in the sides?

Please let me know if you have tried these.

My biggest question: Are there cages out there that are easier to keep clean? I know that no cage will be magical and keep ALL of the mess inside, but there has got to be something better than what I am dealing with now.

I've been reading a lot about the Ferret Nation 182 cages and how to convert them for chinchillas. How easy was it to convert the cage for a chin or chins (to those who have the Ferret Nation for their chins)? Is it less messy and easier to keep clean than the Chinchilla Mansions from qualitycages.com?

Also, I've looked into custom made cages like these and especially these.

They look very great in regards to providing a great habitat for the chins, and they are pleasing to the eye if I wanted to show my friends the chins. The solid wood sides and back on some of the cages make me *think* it would be easier to keep clean. But I know there would be problems with wooden cages: I'd have to make sure they were made of chin-safe wood, I'd have to make sure the chins couldn't chew out of them, I am afraid that (even though my boys are pretty good about going Number One in their bedding) someone might pee on a wooden board and the urine would soak into it, etc.

The custom made cages are also very expensive... but I might be willing to pay for one to check it out. I want y'alls opinions and experiences first.

ANY advice about the different cages I mentioned and commentary about the cages YOU use for YOUR chins would be **greatly** appreciated!! I have two new chins that I am going to need to set up with proper housing.

- Jenn

Hi Jen,

The Quality Cages are really good cages and the litter issue is across the boards on most cages. They love to make messes don't they.

I have the Critter Nation (same mfg as Ferret Nation) and there is a good deal of revamping you will need to do for a chin set up. They have plastic trays that need to be replaced with wood and there are no scatter guards available. I had to make some myself. It cost about $200 to have custom made wooden shelves that my little one who is part termite had chewed up pretty well.

I have seen wooden scatter guards that you attach to the outside of the cage that are custom made but I don't remember the vendor that was offering them.

Scatter gurard do help with the mess but there is another thing that really helped me with the litter mess. I litter box trained my little one, Lola.

It not only saves on mess but saves on litter cost. I got a corner metal litter box from Chinchilla Things and love it. It only took 1 day to train her to use the potty. The litter is now only in the potty and whatever kicks out usually stays in the cage.

Granted the poop is still all over but I just sweep it out each day with a dustpan and brush. The cage stays cleaner.

As far as the saucer goes, Lola won't use one either. She has the Chinspin and runs like a bandit on it. It takes up less space too.

In the housing section of this forum there was a previous post that has quite a few pictures of Ferret and Critter Nations. I think it's labeled "Show Off Your Critter Nation"

Check it out.

I don't have any chins of my own just yet, but after LOTS of super-through research I decided to get the FN 182 & to use fleece liners.

From my readings, the liners make a big difference in terms of mess, obviously because there are no shavings to kick out with the fleece.

For all the fleece items (hammocks, houses, tubes, liners, etc.), I'm sewing multiples so that I can just replace them frequently during the week and save up a load of laundry when convenient.

I also plan to sew a cage backing with maybe ~6" wrapping around each corner. The backing will protect my walls in the event of pee-misses and will also contain poop.

For the other 3 sides, every ledge in the cage will have "poo guards" to help contain the poop more. Perches & ledges without guards I'll put against the back wall so that the fleece backing will take care of stray poopies.

I also plan to remove the middle pan so that they can have more room, also making cleaning easier because there is only 1 level of bedding.

I think the FN is also much easier to maintain daily cleaning, because it opens up fully, so there should also be less material on average for them to fling about.

Again, I don't have chins -yet- but I tried my best to leverage all the lessons learned out there on the internet.

Edit: I wanted to mention that I ordered the metal pan from Bass Equipment, and am having it powder coated. This will replace the plastic pan that comes with the FN.

I'm going to have to use your idea with the office matt flooring underneath the cage- that seems wonderful and probably would help a lot with keeping the carpet nice!

I'm still a first-time owner of a chin, but I remember with Guinea pigs we custom ordered a metal tray (it was local, but I'm sure there are other custom wielders that work with metals by you!) and just had it the maximum hight that they could make it. The large sides really did help keep with the mess in, and I bet if you got a 4" or 5" side to them, it'd certainly help. And keep them cool!

It might be a cheaper fix than getting an entire setup. Though, the wood cages are very nice, I would highly suggest pee-training your chinchilla beforehand. It would just make it easier. But it seems like there is a LOT of interaction already built into the cage. So that's nice!

I have a cage that I made for the chins. It's 3 sides of melamine with the front doors being hardware cloth and the top being hardware cloth as well. It's like the second custom cage that you linked, only a ton smaller. It does keep in the mess, on three sides anyway. The poos and such still fall out the doors of the cage. Also, even with the top being a wooden frame with hardware cloth in the middle... the cage is kind of dark. Putting the cage in the wrong spot, lighting wise, and it's darker on the inside than I'd like.

Cage:

I also have some ferret nations that have poo guards on all the shelves -- for example:



I still find large amounts of poo behind the cages when I pull them all away from the wall to clean. I don't know how they get that much poo outside of the cages with the poo guards, but they do. And mine are 2" poo guards.

To keep the mess in, your best bet IMO is a 3-solid-walled cage. Never going to be able to stop the mess from the front, but at least it won't be coming out all sides. As for the cost... it cost me probably $200+ to build that little cage (the entire cage, including the bottom storage area, is the size of a QC townhome), so the prices would seem about right for the cages, as they're at least double the size of mine.

Thank you for the replies, everyone! This isn't going to be easy! xD I really *adore* the cage you built, Greychins, and to be honest I am leaning towards a custom one. It would be expensive but I think it might be worth the cost for my guys.

Also, I think I am going to give everyone Chin Spins instead of Flying Saucers; the Saucers take up so much room, and the chins don't really use them - they might like a more conventional wheel.

I am thinking about giving fleece liners a try too just to see.

Please keep the information coming!!!

My brain isn't working very well today so forgive me.

I am looking at all of the awesome Ferret Nation set-ups in the thread mentioned, and I am curious about them. Yes, I'd love a custom cage but it would probably be easier and much cheaper to try and customized a Ferret Nation cage.

Here are some questions:

My six chins live together in pairs. Would it be *one* Ferret Nation 182 cage for two chins to live in? I am a bit confused on which cage to buy and how many it would hold.

Also, the Ferret Nation 182 comes as a two level cage, right? I see that I'd need new pans from here. However, and this is probably not giving my chins enough credit for their smarts, will my chins have any issues figuring out jumping through the hole in the middle pan to get from the top to the bottom? (Probably a stupid question, haha).

greychins said:

I also have some ferret nations that have poo guards on all the shelves -- for example:

I still find large amounts of poo behind the cages when I pull them all away from the wall to clean. I don't know how they get that much poo outside of the cages with the poo guards, but they do. And mine are 2" poo guards.

Click to expand...

I love your cage! It's the realization of my plan

Disappointing to hear lots of poo still escapes out do you just vacuum everyday?

Thank you. )

Most of what falls out manages to fall out between the cages or behind the cages. My FN's are in a row in the basement -- they are the cages the rescues are housed in. So this isn't my living room that has to be kept clean or anything like that. Looks like this:



I vacuum in front of the cages daily or at least every other day, and it keeps it pretty clean. There's not a ton of poos, and the pans I have are 2" high metal pans so that does help hold in some of the mess. I pull all the FN's away from the wall maybe once a week or so and get everything between/behind.

Poos still escape, but don't get me wrong -- with the poo guards, significantly less poos escape than before. The floor used to be covered in poos before the poo guards. Now, if I was to vacuum every day, it wouldn't be too bad, just a few here and there. And it's totally do-able. If you want an open cage (like, not walled in completely on 3 sides), your best bet is a deep pan and poo guards. They do help.

Here is my setup:






Designed it where poopies rarely fall out of cage. Hay has become an issue since my chins decided to "redesign" their food bowl.

Greychins, I recognize that picture now! When I saw your setup in the FN thread I was so inspired I decided to find a local metal shop to powder coat my pans too! Then naturally I got carried away and now they're powdering my pans, saucer, wheel and litter box too

I have my single chin in a 2 story Critter Nation which is the same size as the FN but the wire caging is oriented horizontally instead of vertically.

They will figure out how to manage the levels with the ramp easily.

My opinion would be 1 FN per pair would give the pair sufficient room to romp and play. I say this because my single has the same amount of room and is very content.

If you check out Midwest Nation website you can get the cage dimensions to determine what you think will work for your little ones.

Budget wise I think the ferret nation would be your better option, with the exception been if you are good with tools and could make your own custom cage. The 3 sided wood cage seems harder to clean and maintained in my opinion (those ledges and walls would get chewed and pee on them, I would be a lot of sandpapering to keep them clean). With the FN you can just vacuum everything daily, and it would take less than 5 minutes.

With time you can get everything on sale (considering you already have a cage you can wait to get the best deal) the less I have seen a FN 182 new (lately) is 176 dlls, but everyone here said that with time you can get one used on Craiglist for less. Amazon and Google shopping is a good place to start for a new one.

The ledges would be quite inexpensive if you can make them yourself if not, several of this forum members sell those; and from time to time have premade set for less that it would cost to bought them separately.

I have Fns with the metal Bass Pans (from Bass Equipment Co). The pans really help keep some mess inside. All 6 of my boys use a glass baking dish as a potty (fill with shavings) and I make and use fleece liners (one cage is tiled). There will always be some mess :hair: , but it isnt too bad! I think the FN is easy to chin proof. You can replace the plastic floor pans with metal pans or buy fleece liners to cover them. You can remove or cover with fleece the plastic shelf trays that come with it. Add a few ledges here and there and some accessories and you are good to go!!

Again, thanks for all the responses!! Now I am thinking about the FN 182... I might give one a try for the new pair before I switch from the Chin Mansions with all of them.

I was wondering if it would be a plausible idea to actually get some proper wood from Home Depo and make panels for the back and sides of the Chin Mansions... the only problem is that I'd have to drill out holes in the wood where the Chin Spins and ledges attach.

Gosh, I really am wondering if a converting a FN 182 would just be the easiest and most effective solution... does anyone here custom make ledges that fit the FN that they would be wiling to sell?

Well, I gave in and I bought a FN 182 and the replacement pans from Bass Equipment. This should be an interesting project!

I also do not have chins yet, but my set-up is a Ferret Nation 182 as well. I probably spent a lot more setting mine up than most ... but these are my first chins and I went a little crazy! I found it a lot of fun being able to basically set up the cage anyway I wanted. I do think it cost more money in the end ... getting the Bass Pans, buying shelving, getting fleece, etc. ... but the cage is exactly how I would have wanted it. You can also buy a third level add-on for the Ferret Nations if you want to make them bigger, something I plan on doing very soon!

There are several vendors who can make you shelves any size you like! Shelly (Shooper) who made a previous comment on here makes and sells shelves with little poo guards. Twilight Chinchillas makes shelves and you can get custom poo guards, Whimsey's Menagerie also makes shelves! You can find multiple vendors! The best part, lots of places pre-make things to fit the Ferret Nations since they are such popular cages.

I would love to see it!

NiftyKat said:

I also do not have chins yet, but my set-up is a Ferret Nation 182 as well. I probably spent a lot more setting mine up than most ... but these are my first chins and I went a little crazy! I found it a lot of fun being able to basically set up the cage anyway I wanted. I do think it cost more money in the end ... getting the Bass Pans, buying shelving, getting fleece, etc. ... but the cage is exactly how I would have wanted it. You can also buy a third level add-on for the Ferret Nations if you want to make them bigger, something I plan on doing very soon!

Click to expand...

Your cage seems that have had a lot of love. I would love to see it sometime. I’m always looking for decoration ideas!

I am getting very excited! I bought the Bass Pans - Shooper/Shelly, do you have a website with your custom poo guards and shelves? I'd love to look at them!

Okay, question: when you all say "powder coat" the pans, what does that mean? *clueless*

So I bought the FN 182 and the Bass pans and am waiting for them to arrive.

Questions while I wait as well as a check-list for me:

1. How hard is the cage to set up straight from the box? Tools needed?
2. I know I'll take out/not put in the plastic ferret stuff
3. One Bass pan goes in the bottom, the other (with the hole) goes in the middle, right?
4. Will the Bass pans honestly keep a lot of the mess in, or do I reinforce them with some sort of poo guard?
5. I put the bedding in the two Bass pans.
6. Add toys, ledges (probably with custom poo guards), water bottle, food, etc.

I am trying to prepare myself for when this thing comes. I am one of those "I want to be completely prepared" people when it comes to something new, even a chin cage.