You have two options when it comes to cages for chinchillas. You can build your own or you can buy one ready-made. We've actually done both.
Our first cage was typical of pet store cages. Its dimensions measured 3 feet x 1.5 feet x 2 feet and it had two levels. It seemed to be a decent size for one chinchilla, but it didn't take long before we started to think about coming up with our own design. The main advantage of a store bought cage is immediate availability. Pre-built cages can also be reasonably priced given the economies of scale inherent in mass produced products.
Our second cage was one we designed and built. We wanted to build something as large as possible, but still be small enough to move around our house as needed. This meant the cage had to be no wider than 2 feet so that it could fit through a doorway. The length was determined by figuring out what we could maneuver around the hallways of our home. This turned out to be 4 feet. And the height was also 4' mostly because of the size of the materials that we selected (more about that below).
The custom chinchilla cage we built has a 5-sided base (i.e. 4 walls and a bottom) made out of melamine. Melamine is particle board covered with white plastic that is easy to clean with Windex and a paper towel. To make moving the cage easy, we attached strong caster wheels to the bottom of each of the 4 corners.
The sides and top of the cage are made out of white Elfa shelving you can buy from the Container Store. Holding the whole thing together are 1-inch square pieces of wood that run length-wise or width-wise throughout the cage. These pieces of wood also provide support for wooden shelves (4 levels) that the chinchillas can jump onto. The Elfa walls and ceiling form another 5-sided box that sits within the melamine base. Both the melamine bottom and Elfa have a door to allow for entry to and exit from the cage.
To make the cage easier to clean, we put together a 5-sided wooden box which we filled with bedding as a cue to our chinchillas. The wooden box also has a melamine bottom, but it has pine sides since they're exposed and may be chewed.
Entries (RSS)
July 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I have a two level wire cage for my chinchillas. The cage is advertised as a ferret cage. It is working very well for my chinchillas so far in most aspects, but I am worried about the floor of the cage. The wire bars are more far apart than I'd like and there are actually no cross bars on the floor, all the wire bars go in one direction. I didn't like this so I put cardboard on top of the wire on both levels for the chinchillas to walk on. However, the chinchillas are very quickly destroying my cardboard floor. Is there something better (and easy to maintain) that I can use to protect my chinchillas feet from the wire bottom? I've been trying to think of something for a while now…
Also, is it okay to use a 'bitter apple' product on the wire to keep the chinchillas from chewing on it?
July 7th, 2008 at 7:19 am
If your parents are going to put restrictions on the size of the cage, are they also going to not allow you to let your chinchilla run around outside of the cage? Daily exercise outside of the cage is important for keeping your chinchilla healthy.
July 6th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I want a chinchilla very very badly, and I don't think my parents will let me get one if its cage is too big. Is it possible to have a cage under 24×24"? Also, how much do you think the chinchilla will cost?
June 19th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Val,
The door uses a pretty low-tech system for staying place. Along one side are zip ties that hold the door upright and allow it to swing in and out. However, because the wire shelving is heavy, the door actually sits on the bottom of the cage and there's enough friction to keep it from moving unless you lift it first. The front melamine wall along the bottom of the cage has a door on hinges and a simple bolt style lock.
June 18th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I love the pictures of your cage and I'm going to have my teenage son build one this summer - it should keep him busy for a week (I hope). My question is how exactly do you keep the door from swinging in and out. I'm assuming your melamine box has a door on it too so that would keep the door from swinging out - but I don't see anything in your picture that would keep it from swinging inwards. Also, I'm not quite clear on how you attached your door - it looks like you just used the plastic zip ties on one side. Is that correct?
We had built an outdoor cage for our chinchillas but we had just used a roll of galvanized small squared wire(fogot what it was called but it's in the gardening section at Home Depot - we didn't use chicken wire because I was afraid the chins would be able to get through it. We use a staple gun to attach it to pine 1×2. The door was a bit of a problem and the wire isn't stiff enough to attach wooden shelves to like the wire shelving units you used in your design. Thanks for the additional ideas. I look forward to a better description of the door. Or if you could just take another pic that includes the entire door that would be great.
THANKS!