Click on the images to see full better version.
Recently, all of our 5 pairs are using the same style of cage. We have 5 of this cage for our five pairs. We like this cage becasue it's inexpensive to buy and common to see as well. It's design for chinchilla and ferret originally. Each cage we had made a sleeping box for them located at the bottom. But as you can see at the very right side of that cage, which is our Bui and Depi's cage, their sleeping box is located at the top because we do not want them to urinate on the top of the box (it's smell) which they like to do it there...
Another advantage of this cage is that it's big enough to put their favorite wheel inside. This cage equipped with two attachable food dishes for hay and pellets, a compressed alfafa hay cube and a chew bloc as well. Cleaning up this cage is easy, just separate the bottom part and clean up the mess. With this size of cage, we clean up the bottom part every 3 days and wash the whole cage every 3 or 4 weeks.
When baby is comming, we put the Dad away and left the Moma in this cage with the bottom mesh taken away. We also use the stair to block out the upper part to avoid baby trying to climbing up there (to play in the wheel) so they will not get hurt when fallen down. Eventhough they did, we already used soft towel to cover the litter pan to protect them from falling.
Sorry, I know it was not a very good picture...this is the new cage for our non-breeding chins. We bought two, one is boy-only and another is girl-only ^^. Currently, Bei Jr. and Pui-Yee are sharing this cage. This cage has three stories and it is big enough to put in a bigger wheel. And this cage is very inexpensive to buy, it is cheaper than those cages above.
This cage used to be Zig and DiDi's cage but now they've been move. This cage now is use to separate the Dad when Moma is going to deliver kits. We bought this cage in Hong Kong and is specialize for chin. We still can put a wheel in for them but thinking that it's too small for two. This cage only use when we want to separate the male from the mom (usually a week or two).
This cage is even smaller. No room and it's impossible to put in a wheel. This cage so is also use to separate the Dad. The ungly looking sleeping box is so handmade.
This is an old picture of their old chinland. We used to put all the cages here (when we just have 5 chins), but when we have 10 finally, we are out of space. So we moved them to a room. The other on the right side is to show you how we are using the wood fence ( handmade) to divide up their free run area.
This is their own room. Five of these cages are in this same room. We cannot take a very good picture of the whole room but these are two of the corners of the room. You can see that if we have more than five cages. We are out of space again so some of them (baby) have to either give away or keep them outside of this room such as the old chinland (above).
They can have their free run here. But not all 10 of them can run together. We have to split them in groups because some of them fight badly. So the outside chinland still can be use. While one group is playing in the room, the other group is playing outside with the wood fence divided up the space for them.
As you can see, after all five cages have been moved to their room, here we can have more space for them to play. One group can play in here while the other play inside the room. Furthermore, we can still keep some babies here since here have some more room for them ;-) And now, our Bei Jr. and Pui-Yee has been moved to here (see the second cage above)
So now we have a chinland and a chinroom for them to play whereas all 5 cages are inside the chinroom.
When a pair is going to deliver, we will then take their cage out of their room and separate the dad staying beside the mom's cage. We do this not only because we can take a good look at the moma, but also the chinroom is too small for 6 cages but is perfect with 5 cages.
That's how we bath them. First we use a big box, inside the big box, we put in aother box and then a cat litter pan. We use a cat litter pan as the container of the dust because it's have more room for them to roll freely and crazily. When they are rolling the dust, we will then close the box so the dust will not spread every where when rolling. After 3 to 4 minutes rolling, we put them back to their cage.
Now, we no longer use the above cheap bathing pan, we bought another good one for them. I forgot what is it originally for but I am sure this one is good for the dust bath. The main advantage is that we can shut the lid when they are crazy rolling inside the tub. The opening is also big enough to let us pick them up. Plus, we can see thru the lid so we can "enjoy" their rolling. *0*
Back