Love the cage, but...

[Bostongirl'sChin75]

Okay, so when I got my chin Zoe a few months ago, I wanted to get her one of those A frame cages from 4 J's Plantation, so I saved up and bought her one. It worked great too! I Loved it! Until she decided she was going to turn into this Chewing chinchilla monster! She has managed to chew the drawer, all the shelves and has started in on the parts of the walls she can get her teeth in contact with!

She has plenty of toys to chew on, gets wood daily, and all kinds of other chew toys and still she wants to chew her cage up! :hair: After looking at the shelves, drawer, and walls, I decided to temporarily put her into an extra SuperPet cage I have for emergencies, so I can sand down the shelves and drawer ( there was major splintering going on ).

My question is: Should I sand them or just replace them now, or keep her in the cage she is right now? If she chews this much, would it be cost effective to replace them? The one she is in now has more room and less wood ( minus her shelves and ledges I have in there ). Which is in weird in itself, because she will not chew her ledges, but chewed the shelves that came in the cage..

I knew chins chewed but who knew they could destroy a cage in a few months flat! :wacko:

 

[tinkerbell2002]

I would say just keep your chin in the cage she has now. but only put one or two of the ledges in the superpet cage for her to chew on. so that way she will have the regular ledges to jump on to and the wood ones to chew on. and you said the one she is in now is bigger so that's always better for your chins. And that way it is always more cost efficient! =)

 

[Stackie]

I would say just keep your chin in the cage she has now. but only put one or two of the ledges in the superpet cage for her to chew on. so that way she will have the regular ledges to jump on to and the wood ones to chew on. and you said the one she is in now is bigger so that's always better for your chins. And that way it is always more cost efficient! =)

If you're talking about leaving the plastic superpet shelves in and she's a big chewer, that is definitely not a good idea. If a chin chews plastic, it should not have plastic. I had a chinchilla get an impaction from plastic and he almost died.

If she is chewing to the degree that she could chew her way out of the cage, I would keep her in a wire cage and fill it up with shelves. Chins chew, so they might as well be chewing something safe. Shelves aren't that expensive to replace and as long as she isn't buzz sawing through them ridiculously, it shouldn't be a big deal. It costs me around $6 at Lowe's to make 3 shelves, and they cut them for me too.

If it is a big problem you may want to look into making her a melamine cage or melamine shelves, you just have to line the edges of the shelves with metal- hence she can't chew. I also have covered the larger shelves in one of my cages with granite tile because the boys pee all over the place. They can't chew the shelves (they have been in there for several years now), but they still have other little ledges to chew that don't cost much to replace.

 

[Bostongirl'sChin75]

Np plastic in this cage, but I did leave one of the metal shelves in it for her cuddle couch and I have a fleece cover over it and the grate on the bottom, to protect feet. ( though the spacing is close enough together her feet can not get stuck ) She seemed much happier last night too, as I slept in the chair beside her cage and heard her singing and hopping around all night!

I will be looking into building a cage for her and my other chins, as I have this need to have everything match and will be transforming my dining room into the chin room. Thanks for the feed back!