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.
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February 17th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Hi Nicole,
We may take more pictures sometime. What a mean by 5-sided is a basically a box without a top i.e. 4 sides and a base with no top. The shelves are attached by screws. Washers are used to help keep the screws from slipping between the bars of the cage. The wire cage walls are held together by zip ties. They're not the only things holding the cage together as the screwed in wood shelves also provide a lot of support.
February 16th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Hi. Thanks for the info. I was wondering if you could post a couple more pics? I would like to see the base of the cage in the front. That view is cut off from your photo. I would like to see what you meant by a 5 sided base. Also, how have you attached the outside shelving "walls"? With zip ties? Or have you somehow screwed them together?? are they quite stable? My chins bounce of the walls in their cage and I don't know if zip ties would hold them up with all the bouncing and bounding they do. thanks again.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I have finished my cage! It is great! My chins went from a 2 foot high 1 wide and 3 feet long cage to a 4 foot long 20 inches wide and 4 feet high. They are very happy! THANKS!!
January 17th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Trisha,
The door is made out of melamine. It has two hinges on it so that we can open/close it along with a dead-bolt to keep it closed.
Melamine can be purchased from Home Depot or other similar stores.
As for more photos, we didn't take any while were building the cage so we can only post pictures of the finished product. It's on our to do list!
January 17th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Where do you buy melamine?