My FN182 Interior Plans (3D Concept)

[Brian123]

My Ferret Nation 182 is arriving tomorrow and I've been overwhelmed how to design the interior. So I finally created a rough 3D model of the cage and items to plan what to finally order.

I found it really helped me figure out optimal arrangement and spacing with actually seeing the proportions. Though, I'd like to hear opinions considering safety of this plan.

This will be for two 1 year old chinchillas. I tried to keep the area around the wheel clutter free. Only the hammock gets close (seen in side renders). I worry of one jumping on the wheel from a ledge while it's in motion. The fleece tube and fleece house are angled to ledges, instead of straight out.

Image attached below:

 

[smhluvsmh]

That is so cool! Boy, would I love to be able to plan out that way. It's so hard trying to design in your head. I have 3, 3 levels that I change up often. Your design looks good to me. I always worry about them trying to get on top of the wheel so I always put a shelf on top so they can't. Otherwise, great job.

 

[ashleynicol3]

That's awesome! I've been trying to draw out my cage plans and it's just not working. Looks like we have a lot of the same stuff though, so I'll just use yours for the proportions! Cool!

 

[Brian123]

Thanks for the feedback.

A shelf of some kind over the wheel seems like the best choice for safety. Probably should be as wide as the wheel so they can't step down do it. Or a wooden/tube tunnel that opens to the corner shelf.

Though, with anything over the wheel, and not much clearance under, should I worry a chinchilla still managing to touch the wheel and get pulled under the shelf or tunnel?

Another option, hang a few small chew toys to the side of the hammock, corner shelf, and side shelf, to discourage jumping to the wheel by blocking their line of sight to it?

 

[ljiayi]

Hmmm, the chew toys might end up touching the moving wheel? Or is the space between them big enough to ensure there won't be any contact? Other than that, loving the 3D visual

 

[Brian123]

Hmmm, the chew toys might end up touching the moving wheel? Or is the space between them big enough to ensure there won't be any contact? Other than that, loving the 3D visual

Looking at my model, it appears if the hanging toys are short enough, they can block jumping to the wheel and not touch it, since it's always above it or far enough away.

I quickly sketched where 3 chew toys of various random designs could go: 1 in back of the hammock, 1 to the side of the left shelf, and one to the side of the right shelf.

Though, still in the process of adopting chinchillas, I don't know their behavior around hanging chew toys. Like, will they lean out to chew it and clumsy enough to possible fall forward onto the wheel through the toy?

 

[Devi Xiao]

How are you rendering these 3D images? They're so cool!

 

[mknoblich1]

That's awesome! My girls use the top of their wheel to move from one shelf to another so I wouldn't put it past the, to lean out to chew. They have really good balance though so I wouldn't worry to much about them falling out although sometimes they can miss judge.

 

[Brian123]

That's awesome! My girls use the top of their wheel to move from one shelf to another so I wouldn't put it past the, to lean out to chew. They have really good balance though so I wouldn't worry to much about them falling out although sometimes they can miss judge.

I mentioned my concern to the breeder I'm adopting my chinchillas from and she felt a simple shelf would be best. So I guess I'll go that route. Looking for chew toys to fit the situation was tough and when done, not a permanent solution.

 

[ldewald]

Ha yes I love the render!

I'm using a bendable squiggle bridge over my wheel, its made from big dowels and thick wiring so it can perfectly conform to the wheel w/o leaving any room for wiggly chinnies or impairing the wheel at all.

My 2 cents: I would add a few smaller, perch-type ledges. My girls love their lava ledges and branch perches, especially for chew/perching multitasking and to "launch" off of when they're doing laps around the cage. They're also pretty cheap, usually $1.5/inch depending who you get them from.

Congrats! The nesting stage is super fun for us over-planner types

 

[ljiayi]

When my chin plays with her hanging chew toy I have never seen her lost her balance before. She likes to hold on to it and it tilts a little because of the weight of her. Other than that, her balance seems fine while chewing the hanging toy. Good luck with your new chins btw

 

[Brian123]

So, I've ordered the ledges and bridge, and should be shipping soon.

Idewald, I took your advice and added two natural wood branch type perches that I can use to fill in some gaps, then maybe more later.

I also decided on adding a 16" ledge over the 15" Chinspin, followed by some height adjustments of the other ledges to balance it out. Oh, and the single hammock will now be a double hammock.

FLEECE DESIGN:

Also, here's a glimpse of the two fleece color schemes I'll be ordering soon. First scheme, a bunch of animal bandits on a ship as a back fleece, then the pan liner a water color. Bottom of cage will be all water. Right theme, subtle green backing and charcoal gray liner. A tube will be solid black to look like a canon, plus looks nice on green.

I haven't been able to decide on the fleece bungalow colors that work with both color schemes. Below I've narrowed down some choices, from safe to wild.

 

[Tricialynn]

We are building a new cage for our two boys. What program did you use to render these concepts? I just love them.

 

[ljiayi]

I think white would match anything. As for the interior, the white with the cheveron pattern is awesome.

 

[ashleynicol3]

I like Caribbean and navy!

 

[Brian123]

We are building a new cage for our two boys. What program did you use to render these concepts? I just love them.

I used a program called Hexagon. It's no longer in development and a company called Daz3D now owns it. Despite it's issues and no new releases, it's still a very useful tool thanks to how fast and easy it is. Often it can be free during promotions, but currently $13.97.

Link to Hexagon:
http://www.daz3d.com/hexagon-2-5-download-version/

But since we are talking mostly arranging cubes in 3D, there should be some free options. While I haven't used it, there is SketchUp Make. It's free and kind useful for architectural modeling, and advertised as 3D for everyone. So free and possibly much easy to pick up and use. There's a Pro version with a trial, which you could use to just visualize your design in case it has cool features. Here's the link to the free one:
http://www.sketchup.com/products/sketchup-make

I'd say look for some example modeling videos on youtube for SketchUp just to see how it works. I recall it wowing me how super easy it seemed to just carves shapes into anything without actually having to worry about polygons.

Also, another free program I hear about, but never used, is Wings3D. But I'm not sure how easy it is to use. But then again, you just need to draw cubes for ledges, cage frame, dwellings, then cylinders for tubes and bungalows, etc. For dimensions, just type in the inches of what you are copying, then work at that scale, rotate and position. No need to get detailed. If no transparency options for the cage, then just make it with the thin frames with no wire so you can see it at all angles.
http://www.wings3d.com/

Oh, I could export the models I made as obj files that can be imported into the free programs to start moving around and designing. Should cut down on modeling time.

 

[Tricialynn]

Thanks Brian. I will definately be trying these.