My neighbor wasn't joking.

[Junebug]

Originally Posted by Connie Star

I'd be concerned that they would chew their way thru the wood that the cage appears to be made of. We always kept them in aquariums (aquaria?) made of metal and glass, with mesh tops. They can be quite the escape artists.
They're adorable.

Thank you, Connie.

Their current home is full of design flaws. Hubby doesn't know much about rodents and he built it on a budget on the spur of the moment using my wire and scrap wood from our cabinet shop. Had he asked, I would have given him some practical suggestions.

Keeping in mind that this is a short term habitat I would have made the following suggestions:

Less wood and more wire...period.

A wire floor may have caused foot injury. A plastic or prefinished wood slide out tray for the base would have been nice and much easier to clean. The base is stationary and unfinished, so I improvised with a plastic bubble wrap lining to aid in clean-up. They haven't taken an interest in chewing the bubble wrap yet....

The box should have had access from the top instead of the front and it should be hinged. It's current design requires that I completely remove the front panel. This is not good.

I would have prefered a 2 or 3 story design separated by landings. My short term, spur of the moment solution was to improvise with odds and ends from my garage. Their nesting box is an inverted wire framed woven basket. The open handles are their entry holes. I placed a ceramic tile on the base of the basket for a roof. Their nesting box was placed on a raffia coated wire framed shelf. A scrap piece corian countertop material fits perfectly on top of the wire shelf to support the nesting box. John left some long exposed staples along the upper level of one wall so I curved the wire downwards around a piece of bamboo. On another wall I propped a slatted orchid mount. Between the slats I wedged some empty TP rolls for tunnels. They love their tunnels. Narrow bases from butter dishes are used for feeding. The current water dish is a whimsical ceramic frog designed to hold scouring pads. One of my dog's degutted toys (a fluffy yellow and orange duck) is tucked in the bottom and provides a soft place to hide. Two balls are suspended from a cup hook screwed into the ceiling. One is woven and the other has a bell inside. The balls were provided solely for the purpose of entertainment. There two small branches for climbing and I recently added a tiny vase (sample sized jelly jar) filled with water, grass and assorted foliage from the yard.

The babies still have a lot of growing to do and I'm concerned that their growth is being stunted by the size of their 12" x 24" enviroment which is way too small. My budget is extremely tight, but I've been checking thrift shops for glass aquariums. No luck with that yet, but I did find a small plastic rodent box. It's rather flimsy but it comes in useful. It's used as a temporary holding box when their environment box needs cleaning.