# the white wire closet shelving for Cage making?



## Lil_treasures_Ratties (Dec 6, 2007)

im wondering if anyone has used the white wire closet shelving (available through home depot) for making a cage for their ratties.
i used it a few years back to make a cage for a rescued ferret for a friend and it worked GREAT, easy to put together easy to clean and realy secure once we figured out the best way to secure the doors...

but in looking at the pictures of the home made cages ive not yet seen a rat cage made from the stuff, and the few i have seen utilized have hardware cloth attatched...

the bar spacing is about 1/2 inch so i doubt an adult ratty could fit through the bars...mabe im wrong?

if there any reason the only time ive seen the closet shelving used is wrapped in hardwar cloth...
personally i HATE hardware cloth, and somehow manage to tear myself to sheds even AFTER filing the stuff...

my other thought would be the cube shelving units but the only ones i can find are the 1" x 1" square grid, i KNOW there is the mesh stuff out there but i cant find any? anyone have resources for that because that makes SUPER easy cages too! (and you can make them HUGE!)

i want to make the ratties bigger cages with more toy options...

pictures of the wire shelving cages and the cubes cages in MESH, would be greatly apreciated too!

thanks guys!


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## Poppyseed (Feb 1, 2007)

I made a cage like that. I modified it down to a smaller size though as I had it in two seperate cages but one of my rats in the lower cage passed on and my new boys hate Bert and Bastian and would attack their tales on the lower part so I had to totally seperate them into two seperate cages. I wanted to be fair and not give Bert and Bastian too much more room than the other boys ^_~



















And here are some pics without the superpet addition on the top:


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## Lil_treasures_Ratties (Dec 6, 2007)

thank you, thats exactly what i was looking for, i know when i made the ferret cage (i used the 12" deep shelving) we ended up making a 6ft tall 2ft deep and 3ft wide cage for her trio of fuzzies and it was AWSOME!
and SOOOO easy to do...
id just not seen any and wondered if there was any reason...
yours looks like it works perfectly!

woot...

starts planning sizes lol.
im thinking if i get extra shelving to make the in cage shelves and line them with chloroplast like the bases form the CC piggie cages itll be perfect


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## Lil_treasures_Ratties (Dec 6, 2007)

oh...
and do you use those black clips to hold the doors shut? thats the only thing i had issues figuring out for the ferret cage i made we ended up using the spring clips from the leashes and bungee cords because she wanted one huge door so there were spots where he could have pushed them open if we just used the occasional clip...

cool!
*is still plotting*


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## Poppyseed (Feb 1, 2007)

Yeah the door is a pain but my boys never try to escape really. Most of the day I'm here I keep the cage door open so they can play on their table. They love playing on their table. They are not huge on getting much anywhere else like my other duo is so usually end up just getting table freerange time which seems right by them. They seem more content and relaxed and free than the other duo too for some reason. My other duo likes to explore more and is very set on taking over the cage/table space of Bert and Bastian lol. I wish they could all just get along. I've been trying to fit a neuter into the budget for a while but it always seems to drop to the end of the list and keeps getting put off.

But anyway, I use the black clips. I have to use two and then one at the top. I also modified the coroplast to be a tray which cuts down on the mess a TON. I made it a tray with a square cut the same size so I can clip the fabric on the square piece and set it down in the coroplast for a nice tight fit they have a little more trouble tearing up.


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## OnlyOno (Apr 4, 2007)

i heard that those kind of cages are very heavy when they get bigger, and i found that the shelving was pretty expensive, although most places that sell it will also cut it down to size for you, so yay. up to you. i ended up with a bird cage off craigslist for $30 or something and added hardware cloth levels, it's fabulous. thinking about adding on to it here pretty soon.


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## Poppyseed (Feb 1, 2007)

It is very heavy. I love the design of it though so I put up with it.


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## pooky (Dec 10, 2007)

cute rats


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## Poppyseed (Feb 1, 2007)

LOL Pooky that was the first time they met O_O I had Bastian and Odin on the bottom half and Bert on the top. I was hoping to take it slow but was stupid and didn't close the cage when I went to do laundry (my rats rarely venture far from their cage at all) and I came back to them both laying on the top shelf. I was a little frightened at first but they seemed to be doing alright and Bastian was going nice and slow with Bert so I just watched and let them do their things. They grew to be best buds fast! I've never had introductions go as well as theirs did.

I was lucky it went well though and know now to be more careful.


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