# Making Our Own Cage!



## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Hello rattie peoples!Just thought I would create my own thread about my fiancé and I making our own rat cage out of a cabinet thing! I think it's called a "grotto" or something style? We've got some materials and are going to start setting things in motion tomorrow.. I'm excited! Here's some before pics of just the cabinet. It's measurements are:L- 34 5/8"W- 18 5/8"H- 36 1/2"Our basic idea is to use melamine(?) board to create two half levels and one full level, making it a 4 story cage. Adding tile (haven't decided to go with the fake stick on stuff or real tile) on the levels to help with pee seeping to the shelf, and filling in cracks with a water resistant animal safe type sealent I guess, right?Then making the doors a vinyl coated hardwire mesh, and also attaching that to the bottom of each shelf and the top so we can hang all their goodies! And of course getting latches for the doors to lock Any other insight/advice is greatly accepted and appreciated! I'll be updating with pics and progress!


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)




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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

Replying from the other thread.

What kinds of tools are you guys working with? My husband and I have a whole arsenal of tools at our disposal, so it makes building things fairly easy. You may have to adjust what you're building to the tools you've got. As far as the tile, the sticky stuff is no better than the laminate that they cover cheap book shelves with, I actually have to keep an eye on rats while they're in my bathroom because I've caught them trying to pull up corners of my laminate >.< but of course, if you're careful with the seams, it might work. If the dimensions of your case allows for using real tile without having to cut the tiles (because that's just a pain) I'd go with something that's on sale, they're not expensive at all for a small project. If you can use real tile, I'd just get a hefty glue and glue them down and then grab some clear, water proof caulk to seal the cracks. Cover with felt or something pretty and you should be good. If you're making a full shelf that separates the entire cage, I'd just do the same thing you did with the rest of the cage by tiling over a wood shelf. Just make sure it's extremely secure. If you want shelves for climbing, I'd do wire panels with felt covering, again secured extremely well. In all honestly, it's a matter of trial and error and depends a lot on your rats. I've had some rats that don't chew anything, and more that chew everything lol. If something doesn't work all you can do is learn and try again 

After reading this post, a little additional info. Melamine is what we used for our cage originally. Unfortunately, when you cut melamine, you expose the wood inside and pee seeps in. It gets nasty really quick >.< plus some of my rats actually chewed the outer layer off of it since they were able to get at the edges where it was cut. If you do use melamine (it's cheap, so why not!), I would seal it with something and then wrap it with the vinyl tile or tile with ceramic tile. If they can't get to the wood they probably won't chew.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

kksrats said:


> Replying from the other thread.What kinds of tools are you guys working with? My husband and I have a whole arsenal of tools at our disposal, so it makes building things fairly easy. You may have to adjust what you're building to the tools you've got. As far as the tile, the sticky stuff is no better than the laminate that they cover cheap book shelves with, I actually have to keep an eye on rats while they're in my bathroom because I've caught them trying to pull up corners of my laminate >.< but of course, if you're careful with the seams, it might work. If the dimensions of your case allows for using real tile without having to cut the tiles (because that's just a pain) I'd go with something that's on sale, they're not expensive at all for a small project. If you can use real tile, I'd just get a hefty glue and glue them down and then grab some clear, water proof caulk to seal the cracks. Cover with felt or something pretty and you should be good. If you're making a full shelf that separates the entire cage, I'd just do the same thing you did with the rest of the cage by tiling over a wood shelf. Just make sure it's extremely secure. If you want shelves for climbing, I'd do wire panels with felt covering, again secured extremely well. In all honestly, it's a matter of trial and error and depends a lot on your rats. I've had some rats that don't chew anything, and more that chew everything lol. If something doesn't work all you can do is learn and try again After reading this post, a little additional info. Melamine is what we used for our cage originally. Unfortunately, when you cut melamine, you expose the wood inside and pee seeps in. It gets nasty really quick >.< plus some of my rats actually chewed the outer layer off of it since they were able to get at the edges where it was cut. If you do use melamine (it's cheap, so why not!), I would seal it with something and then wrap it with the vinyl tile or tile with ceramic tile. If they can't get to the wood they probably won't chew.


I also mentioned to him the exposing of the wood when we cut it. We had the people at Home Depot cut them to size so when we go back we will have to search around for something to cover it with.. I've only had these two girlies for about a week now so I haven't really seen too much chewing going on (except on their hammock and the cat toys I have in there). Honestly I wouldn't necessarily care if they chewed it a bit, it's the pee I'm worried about!And my grandfather is a handy man so he had every sort of tool under the sun! If we didn't have him there's no way we could have bought or even rented our own!So did you and your husband make a cage like this and did you like it? Are you still using it?Thanks for the reply, very informative!!


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

We made a cage that was 5' x 4' x 2', three levels with pvc pipes leading up to each level. The outside frame was made of 2x4s that I'd painted with waterproof paint, the shelves were melamine. It was open on all four sides with wire panels all around and the entire front opened up as one door. It was absolutely amazing....until my rats started chewing on it. We had two wheels, toys, plenty of food and whatnot, so they weren't chewing out of boredom but just because they liked to chew. It worked out really well for about 4 months until excessive amounts of pee started soaking in and I began worrying about them chewing the paint off too. The rats loved all the levels and especially racing up and down the pipes, but after a while it just wasn't healthy for them with all the chewing. But, lessons learned, and I'll do it differently next time


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

kksrats said:


> We made a cage that was 5' x 4' x 2', three levels with pvc pipes leading up to each level. The outside frame was made of 2x4s that I'd painted with waterproof paint, the shelves were melamine. It was open on all four sides with wire panels all around and the entire front opened up as one door. It was absolutely amazing....until my rats started chewing on it. We had two wheels, toys, plenty of food and whatnot, so they weren't chewing out of boredom but just because they liked to chew. It worked out really well for about 4 months until excessive amounts of pee started soaking in and I began worrying about them chewing the paint off too. The rats loved all the levels and especially racing up and down the pipes, but after a while it just wasn't healthy for them with all the chewing. But, lessons learned, and I'll do it differently next time


Awe yeah the pee is my main concern.. It'll definitely shorten the cage's life. I would love to get a feisty ferret cage but we just don't have that money right now. And the cage they're in now, unbenonced (sp?) to me, according to the rat cage calculator, is not big enough to sustain one rat for daily life.. And I have two! So we need a pretty quick fix because I feel horrible for them!  I take them out for free time pretty much every time they're awake and looking at me. So if nothing else this cage will definitely be able to sustain their daily life until we can get an already made one!


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

Yeah, money is the reason we made our own cage to begin with. Those big cages are so expensive >.<. I'm actually debating making another or snagging a really large bird cage off of cl since I find them cheap sometimes. Since I do litter rescues, I have to have something the babies can't fit through and fall out of, which is a big problem with most of the cages that are meant for rats. Anything with smaller bars is too small for mom and a good size litter, so I just modified one of my cages with wire panels so that they can't escape. My husband calls it ratcatraz >.< it's not pretty, but it does it's job. I would really like something better though.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Eek! I wrote such a nice long thing and for some reason it messed it all up >.< omg why.

Anywhos, it's really cool that you rescue litters! Having babies must be so exciting (yet exhausting lol). I'm having trouble trying to figure out if one of my female feeder rescues is pregnant-- I'm in the "waiting to see if she gets any bigger and plumper" stage. If that's the case and this cage is done being built I will be able to just separate the two levels which will be Very nice!


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

Having pups is very time consuming and sometimes stressful (in the case of my runt that just passed), but it is also fun and very satisfying. I think the most stressful part of it is trying to find them good homes, since I put so much effort into educating people before I will let my little babes go home with them. While I hope that your little girl isn't pregnant with an accidental litter, I'm sure you'll do wonderfully at supporting mom during the process. And, of course, we're all here to support you along the way if you've never had a litter


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

This will be a first for me if it is indeed true. I hope she isn't though.. But I know I'll have a bunch of rat lovers at my fingertips if I need them!


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

ok SO we are still in the process of building our "grotto style" cage with the cabinet thing and we have run into MANY problems.. Our recent ones though are the latches that we chose to make the doors close (they originally didn't lock) aren't working. If you push hard enough (which isn't that hard) the doors swing open. My grandfather said it's because those latches were made for one side to be attached to something that doesn't move, so it would only work if we permanently screwed shut one of the doors which we don't want to do. The 2nd ongoing problem in our heads is what on earth we are supposed to make the ramps out of.. We want to avoid using any more wood (though we are using that melamine board stuff). We were thinking doubling up the hardwire mesh and using that, or screwing the mesh onto the melamine board and just using that (we need something to give them some sort of traction, obviously we can't just stick a piece of slippery melamine board in there n call it a day lol).

Those are basically it! Once we've got those bases covered we are going to seal off the cracks, attach the hooks to the corners I'm putting litter boxes in & we're done!

Anyone have any thoughts/ideas??

thankies!!


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## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

For the ramps you could use a piece of melamine board, and add little raises ridges on it with small stick shaped whatever material you want to use to give the rats something to grab on when climbing 


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

ksaxton said:


> For the ramps you could use a piece of melamine board, and add little raises ridges on it with small stick shaped whatever material you want to use to give the rats something to grab on when climbing Sent from Petguide.com Free App


We have extra little pieces here and there that could work, but what would we use to attach them? A sort of glue?


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## ksaxton (Apr 20, 2014)

Maybe a non toxic hot glue or wood glue, or very thin and short nails like they use on children's wooden toys 


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## never-sleep (Mar 3, 2012)

For the ridges on the ramps you could buy a few small wooden dowels. They're just little round wooden sticks, basically. Cut them to size and place them about an inch apart across the wood you're using for the ramp. As for what glue is safe, I'm clueless.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

I looked at the wood glue we have and it says it's non toxic. So should that work?Thank you for saying 1" apart that's very helpful!


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## deedeeiam (Apr 8, 2014)

The expose wood will be an issue. Also...the soon to be exposed wood if they chew through the melamine any. I have one cage that is DIY and I used the melamine. Using the sticky tiles was a mistake...or using the ones I did was a bad idea. The tiles I used were thick, faux stone. They absorbed urine. Urine got between the edges as well. I ended up having to rig up a liner. If I had it to do over, I would have just built a frame and put wire around it.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

deedeeiam said:


> The expose wood will be an issue. Also...the soon to be exposed wood if they chew through the melamine any. I have one cage that is DIY and I used the melamine. Using the sticky tiles was a mistake...or using the ones I did was a bad idea. The tiles I used were thick, faux stone. They absorbed urine. Urine got between the edges as well. I ended up having to rig up a liner. If I had it to do over, I would have just built a frame and put wire around it.


We can't really think of anything else to make the ramps out of, so I may have to make liners for them. But the shelving I plan on sealing up any cracks around the sides before I put the sticky tile in. And then I have like bathroom rugs to cover the majority of it anyhow. If I could make liners for the shelves I would! How could I attach them? The only thing I thought of was Velcro but I heard it gets damaged in the washer/dryer.


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## mimsy (Jun 8, 2014)

For ramps you can add some kind of little hooks to your shelves. Then you can make some rope/dowel ladders that hook onto them from the shelf to the floor (easy to make and ours like to climb these-just get a big dowel and cut into small pieces and drill holes into both ends. Use rope to string them on, you can just make a knot between each dowel). Our dollar tree has cheapy sisal scratching pads meant to hang on a door or something for cats (basically some kind of cheap wood plank that is wrapped in sisal-they just happen to be about the size of a ramp). They can be used as well. If you get plenty of extras you can just clean them till they get gross and then replace. That's cheap, and something to chew on that may add interest to the cage and won't hurt their feet and easily replaced if it gets smelly.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

mimsy said:


> For ramps you can add some kind of little hooks to your shelves. Then you can make some rope/dowel ladders that hook onto them from the shelf to the floor (easy to make and ours like to climb these-just get a big dowel and cut into small pieces and drill holes into both ends. Use rope to string them on, you can just make a knot between each dowel). Our dollar tree has cheapy sisal scratching pads meant to hang on a door or something for cats (basically some kind of cheap wood plank that is wrapped in sisal-they just happen to be about the size of a ramp). They can be used as well. If you get plenty of extras you can just clean them till they get gross and then replace. That's cheap, and something to chew on that may add interest to the cage and won't hurt their feet and easily replaced if it gets smelly.


Thanks so much! Wow that's creative! We've already got the melamine board/dowel ladders to install BUT whenever they get too damaged (or smelly D I will definitely use the rope and dowel idea! We have a couple dollar trees around here and I find all sorts of goodies there for them! Most recently have been litter boxes! They're file holder things but work awesome lol


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

Final Update!
SO, after more things halted our progress we are FINALLY (pretty much) DONE with our cage! The wooden ramps w/ dowels weren't going to fit in the way we liked, so we are using the dowels and hardwire mesh as the ramps (less wood, yay!), We just have to finish assembling them so right now so they can get used to everything we just have the hardwire mesh there. The other thing we have to do is just put in the other screw eyes in the second story back right corner for the second litter box. AND TA-DA! IT'S DONE! I _did_ have another nice bathroom rug for the whole bottom story, really cute, pink black and white striped, yeah that didn't last a night LOL (chewed to bits). I'll probably wind up taking the one upstairs out too once I get a bowl to hang under their water bottle (it drips a little and I don't want it ruining their nice hardwood floors.. lol). But so far they are leaving that one alone =)

I can't wait to get them awesome toys and decorations and I'm definitely getting a wheel for the second story.. I just don't know what kind of wheel could go in there?! Do the ones that just have stands actually work or do I now have to figure out how we're going to attach a wheel to the side (oh lord please no more projects for a while.. lol)

Thanks everyone for the help and advice it was AWESOME couldn't have done it without you!


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## thatprettyarcanine (Aug 16, 2014)

This is so awesome!! Great job!

I'm thinking about making my own for my babies when they're a little bit older as well.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

thatprettyarcanine said:


> This is so awesome!! Great job!I'm thinking about making my own for my babies when they're a little bit older as well.


Awe thanks! My advice would be to not give up! Because we ran into a lot of "oops well that won't work" so you have to just have that big picture in your head and you gotta use the deep deep depths of your imagination to try to improvise.. It was hard work! But I have to say the most important thing about this sort or cage (for me) is the cleaning. I would have loved to get a double ferret nation or something like that, but with those bars on all sides you have to know that urine, feces, bedding, and food crumbs are just going to fall out all over the place and if you can't bring that kind of cage outside to give it a good cleaning you have to think there's gotta be urine on all the bars, even if they're litter trained they mark everywhere. So for us the end result was a decent sized cage that is easy to clean. And when all else fails and you have no idea what to do ask the people on this forum because they are awesome and so helpful and smart! Smart where I couldn't be (since I've never built anything before in my life lol!)Good luck!


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

Wow! This turned out great  I'm very glad things worked out for you guys, I'm sure your rats love it!


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

kksrats said:


> Wow! This turned out great  I'm very glad things worked out for you guys, I'm sure your rats love it!


They do they do! Thanks so much! I just took the top rug out this morning lol these ladies can't have anything nice! But I replaced it with a bunch of extra fabric I don't care if they chew xD Win win win situation!


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## ratsaremylife (Nov 5, 2013)

Amazing! I tried to make a grotto once, to say it failed would be an understatement!


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

ratsaremylife said:


> Amazing! I tried to make a grotto once, to say it failed would be an understatement!


Oh no lol!! Trust me we almost quit a million times I mean c'mon it took us almost a month to do it! Who in their right mind would do that?! XD


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## deedeeiam (Apr 8, 2014)

For the wheel, most come with the option of a stand or attaching to a cage. Usually you can take the cage attachment and mount to the wall if you measure and drill a few holes in the enclosure.


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## jeriibearii (Jul 26, 2014)

deedeeiam said:


> For the wheel, most come with the option of a stand or attaching to a cage. Usually you can take the cage attachment and mount to the wall if you measure and drill a few holes in the enclosure.


Ah sweet!! Thanks! I never had a wheel with rats before but I feel Molly would love it since she has so much more energy than Molly, lol!


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