Cage 'guard'?

[Smidgeyy]

I've asked this question before but I haven't really had luck finding something yet.
My younger cat is always bothering my chinchilla, to the point where I am unable to give him access to the lower half of his CN(I kept him on one level when he was sick but haven't been able to open it up again). The cat jumps on the cage a lot, and he's just overall annoying. Nothing I do will stop his behavior, I just have to make it work. He's only in that room at night because he can't be trusted elsewhere, so it's not an all day thing.
His claws are dull and trimmed very short so I'm not really concerned about injuries at this point.

The chinchilla actually enjoys it I think, he doesn't appear stressed and will even taunt him into jumping up there.

I thought about getting a play pen and looping that around the bottom half as an extra barrier but I wasn't sure how to attach it or if that would even help. Enclosing it completely is not an option, fleece won't work because he just moves it... So I'm just looking for other ideas/suggestions. It doesn't have to be pretty.

 

[mercynursie]

How about cutting "panels" of some of the small mesh garden fencing/screen and securing those to the panels of the cage? You could probably even secure the panels with metal zip ties or even safer use large washer/bolt and nuts.....

 

[Smidgeyy]

That's essentially that I planned to do with playpen panels, but I wasn't sure if that would be enough. :/

 

[mercynursie]

The cat can probably get paws through playpen panels and possibly hurt himself or your chin. I would think small space grid/mesh would be safer?

 

[Smidgeyy]

Oh when I said playpen, I meant something small enough that his paws wouldn't fit through. It wouldn't be of much use if his paws could fit Lol.