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Mar 18 / kkrizka

Fun Day Building A Hamster Cage

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I spent part of the day yesterday building a bigger cage for my girlfriend’s hamster, Chubbo. His old cage was quite small and did not fit a wheel, so after some research it was decided that he will get a home built cage made from a big plastic bin and some wire mesh. The design is quite simple: a big hole cut in the lid and covered with some of the mesh. The actual bin part is unmodified, although you could do more improvements by adding a few more breathing holes for summer or a door. This is quite easy to accomplish, so I recommend every hamster (or other critter) owner to try building one. Even I managed to finish the complete product you see in the picture above (well, we are still waiting for the new Wodent Wheel to arrive to complete it) in two hours. It allows your pet to have a large home for just a small price (~$30-$40). There are a few good tutorials on the web on how to accomplish this,

Since I prefer theory over practice, I had a bit of trouble with some of the building. Here are a few tips that I found out about as I went along:

  • Layout the mesh first and use that to mark the holes for the screws.
  • Measure twice, cut once. I just barely cut the mesh to the right size, although I planned for several centimeters of “safety space”.
  • Cut the mesh wire by wire. Cutting several wires at a time will just bend them and damage it.
  • It is OK if some of the wires on the sides are bent, just use some duck tape to cover them at the end.

8 Comments

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  1. Arthur Merrylegs / Mar 21 2008

    That looks fun! My human is going to make me some fun stuff too.
    Arthur Merrylegs
    http://arthurmerrylegs.blogspot.com/

  2. Marti / Dec 27 2008

    You are so smart.
    I made a hamster cage and my roborovski hamster is happy

  3. Bean / Apr 1 2010

    That’s a creative idea.

  4. Mary / Jun 19 2010

    Good Idea!

    However, it would be pretty hard to attach platforms to the cage to make the cage more interesting. I would use this idea for a burrowing tank! 🙂

    • Vina / Dec 5 2010

      It’s easy to drill/bore a hole into that type of plastic. I couldn’t afford a proper carrier for my first hamster so I just bought a cheap lunchbox and drilled holes in the lid and one in the side as well for a water bottle.

      Same hamster’s crate cage wasn’t as elaborate as this one, she was too small and had nothing to climb up on to hop out of it so I usually left the top open on hers. If I was leaving for a while, I’d leave an artists canvas over the top with a slight gap so some air could get into her. Also had a plentiful supply of electrical tape to put a bottle up with.

      But I may try this again…. 🙂

  5. Aiko / Sep 27 2010

    请问,,你这个整理箱是多大的???

  6. peyton nelson / Mar 17 2011

    that is a very creative cage and i will definitely use your idea on my new mansion im building for my hamsters!!!!

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