Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone. I am in the process of biulding a cage or getting a cat cage for my two ferrets. The cages at the pet stores are just plainly too darn small or they are outragously over priced. Also I have noticed too many have the grates on the bottom and well thats not good a ferret feets so I want a big cage thats easily cleanable. Nothing is more gross then trying to scrap poop off the grates when your ferrets have missed the litter boxes. Anyway my question is this. My friend has a five story cat cage that she doesn't use. HUGE. Its six feet long. The only problem with the cage is that the bars are 1 1/4 inches apart. She lives 5 hours from my house so I can't just drive over there and see if my ferrets can escape from it. So can anyone tell me if the bars are 1 1/4 inches apart is this too wide of an opening?

The squares really shouldn't be more than an inch. Take a look at www.martinscages.com. I have the New Englander. It was a bit of a pain to put together but it's really easy to clean and the bottom floor and the barn both have slide out pans that you can use. Of course if you use the slide out pan in the barn it sections it off from the rest of the cage. I put vinyl tiles on the center section (28 cents each--took like 6). When I don't have the barn sectioned off, I put a bathroom rug over the grating. It's easy enough to toss it in the washer to clean and it protects the kids' little feeties.

Also, if you have a ferret shelter near you see what kind of cages they might have for sale. I know one shelter that has so many extra cages she has to rent a storage unit for them.
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I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.

I agree with WeaselLuvr about the squares. I've had fererts that could get thru an opening you wouldn't believe! LOL! Our 1st one was a rabbit cage that my hubby fixed up. When we moved my hubby made one up for me. I like mine on the floor and only have one level. My our 1st ferret got old, she had a harder time climbing the ramps. For this reason, I don't want ramps that they have to climb. So when that started happening, my hubby made a new one. It's 6 ft long and 3 ft wide. It it actually 2 separate cages where I can put a screened door in between them. I wanted the separater for 2 reasons. One, if one of them had surgery and had to be kept separate, I could close off the 2 cages so they wouldn't be bothered. There's plenty of room for separate litter boxes and sleeping. The other reason was when I got new ferrets. If they didn't get along in the beginning, I would have 2 cages side by side, yet separate. They could see each other, smell each other, etc. This way they could get to know each other. I would put them together when I could supervise, but at nite they would be separate until they could get along.
My ferrets have always loved to climb the the top of their cage. It's not very tall at all. My hubby made a long, gradual ramp for the side of the cage. It's made out of wood with carpet on it. I have a girl now, Jasmine, that has an enlarged spleen. She was having a hard time climbing the side of the cage. But this ramp is so gradual it's easy for her to get to the top of it. My hubby also made the top of the cage into 4 sections. 2 sections for each cage. They are hinges in the middle of the sections. I can take the tops off completely or I can just life sections when I need to clean the litter boxes or the insides.
The ferret shelter I belong to also has cages for sale. They line the floors of the cages with linoleum (sp). This is really easy to clean and good on the feet.
I hope you're able to get what you want!
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Kat
Ferret mom to Jasmine and Daffy
A Cheesehead from Wisconsin