Joy has always been concerned that her hamster cage was a bit small. Sure, hamsters are tiny, but they cover a lot of ground every day in the wild, and most people who specialize in hamsters say the furry little guys should have at least 450 square inches of floor space to run around in. Doc's cage had half that.
As we considered what to do for our little furry friend, we found a bunch of online tutorials for a DIY bin cage. It's made from a cheap 110-gallon storage bin, with wire mesh zip tied over a hole cut in the top. That seemed like the perfect solution, so we bought our materials and went right to work with Dad's Dremel. After Joy cut the hole, though, she realized the wire mesh we bought was really hard to work with. Then she read the label and discovered that it contained lead, so she decided to return it to the store and look for some lead-free wire mesh.
Unfortunately, we discovered that most hardware stores are fresh out of mesh, lead-free or otherwise, because everyone and their cousin is doing DIY projects in their house and yard while they're stuck at home. Apparently the stores are also running low on coins, of all things. In the age of COVID-19, I'm not surprised to see a shortage of anything anymore.
Joy was eager to move Doc into his roomier new home, regardless of the mesh shortage, so she taped a cooking rack, a book, and my favorite muffin tin over the huge hole in the lid. The cooling rack gave me an idea.
We bought another lid, and cut a hole in it that was slightly smaller than another cooling rack that I rarely use. Daddy helped out with Bin Cage Lid 2.0, mainly because he didn't appreciate the fact that we gummed up his Dremel bit with melted plastic last time.
He also helped Joy fasten the cooling rack on with a gazillion zip ties.
Here's Doc's spiffy new home, complete with the upgraded wheel Joy bought him with money from her lawn mowing job. I think the little bow on top is a nice touch, don't you?
No comments:
Post a Comment