To toss or not to toss?

[smhluvsmh]

I am just wondering where you guys put sticks, hay, hay cubes, rose hips, pumice, toss toys, etc in your cages? Obviously, pellets and if you feed supplement, it would go in a bowl but what about the other stuff? Do you just throw it in? Do you have bowls, bins or holders of some kind?:thinking2:

 

[xBrianx619]

I was just wondering the same thing about my chins hay. I have a little bowl for the food, pumice etc, i just throw in the top level of his cage, which usually end up scattered lol...but the hay, I dunno! I just throw it in there, there has to be some alternative though!

 

[Twilight Chinchillas]

I have little hay holder with a lil box attached for sticks that doubles as a toy box. Hay cubes I toss on the floor. Sometimes on the shelf.

 

[javachin]

If a chin won't take a rose hip or shreddie, I put it on top of their feed. Sometimes I'll stick twigs in their feed too. As for hay, some have hay boxes, but others I just put on the floor, wedged under their coop cup. Hay cubes go on the floor, on top of their house or ledge.

 

[lauralynne]

Hay cubes on the floor, loose hay in terecotta pots. Any rosehips, etc., are in a seperate small dish.

 

[cindyv3737]

Hay cubes are handed to the girls, toss toys are tossed in the cage, sticks are placed in a mug, hay is in a hay holder, rosehips and treats are handed to them

 

[perabalaofmystery]

i have a bowl for pellets a bigger bowl for hay. i drill holes in my hay ubes and make a haycube kabob and stick in the cage. i usualy put the sticks in the middle of the cage. treats are usualy handed to them except if im buisy then ill put a couple in their pellet bowl.

though all of the before mentioned things get scattered around the cage half the time from them playing

 

[smhluvsmh]

Thanks for the comments! So it's a mix, some toss and some don't! I like everything to have a place. Now, the girls think otherwise but I think it's fun for them to pull all their yummies out and it makes me feel better for them to have a tidy cage before I go to bed. We have little chats in the morning about all the "parties" they throw at night and how they better not be inviting any boys over! LOL:impatient:

 

[Chinessa]

I put my hay in a willow twigloo turned upside down, toss toys go in a chewed down twigloo, and twigs/sticks go inside of a paper towel tube. I also hang some sticks and other chew things from a hanging toy.

For rose hips and blocks, I just hand them to my girl and she takes off with them.

Of course, none of this stuff ever stays in the place I put it, haha. Sometimes I wish I could teach her how to clean her room!

 

[ChinnyMom]

hay goes in a small paperboard box - the kind that food items come in (my boys amazingly don't chew it much at all! these boxes last in the cage for a couple months at a time, and usually get pee on them before anything, lol). pellets in two different dishes. chew sticks on different shelves or in a pile on one of their ceramic tiles. lots of hanging toys in their cage, so i don't worry too much about giving many loose toys (toss toys, etc). hay cubes go into a little dish, to keep them from being peed on. treats just get handed straight to the boys.

like others have said, stuff never stays where i put it. most mornings their hay box is knocked off the middle 'floor' and is upside down on the cage bottom, sticks are all over the place, hay cubes are no longer in the dish. i thought about making a more 'secured to the cage bars' hay holder, and finding a way to contain sticks and such, but i honestly think they enjoy making the mess, so i let them have their mess, lol.

 

[6Dusters]

Cubes on the floor. Hay served on ledges and apple sticks given by hand. I don't use a suppliment now but I have in the past. Some chins I put the suppliment on the feed in the bowl. Others I had to buy little condiment cups and put it in there as they will dig in a regular feed bowl and shove the food out. The cups can be found at retail stores in the food prep area. They are little shallow ceramic or stainless cups meant for preparing a recipe and adding salt/spices from the little cups.

Just threw this link in so you could see what the cup might look like. Small and low.

http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Ste...WTN2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1338645272&sr=8-5

 

[mistywaterwoman]

I make my girls toyboxes every few years.

Great for sticks and twigs, lava, pumice, loofah, hay cubes, etc. They have fun digging for the perfect Nom.

Of course, it eventually ends up looking like this:

But fortunately they are easy to make, lol...

 

[xBrianx619]

^ WOW lol. Do you think that if you made a box that was a little longer than that, you could put hay in it? My chin pees close to the same spot that his hay is in.. and I don't want his hay getting soaked! and what do you use as far as glue? Just plain wood glue??

 

[Spirit Chaser]

I have a cute little flower pot for my hay. I toss most of the sticks , wood and other toys on the bottom of the cage, around the flower pot, though once in a while I will hand a bit of wood to one directly to the chin, who will snatch it and run off with it like a crazed goons. Some of their wood goes onto the hanging kabob rods.
My boys haven't gotten any sort of hay cubes since I found plastic twining material in the cubes I had the first year I had my boys. I just can't bring myself to trust any of them now.
Each chin has a specific shelf where they receive treats, such as rose hips, oats, and other things that aren't part of their daily diet, and they always get them on the same spot on those shelves at the same time of night. If I happen to give them a shredie which I almost never do, I will give it to them by hand, at great peril to my finger tips, my boys get way to excited and forget their manners.

 

[mistywaterwoman]

I used to use flower pots for hay as well, it is definitely the cutest option! Just recently I bought some little hanging hay cages from Chins To Go, and that is what I am using right now. They have pros and cons.

Anything you make with wood, you just use plain old Elmer's Wood Glue to put it together. Those toy boxes are made with 4 pieces of 1x6 wood, and then you cut one of those in half for the sides. Easy peasy.

 

[Chinessa]

...Do you think that if you made a box that was a little longer than that, you could put hay in it?

I'm not sure what kind of tools you have access to, but you could also make little slats in the front if you wanted to make it a hay manger.

Anything you make with wood, you just use plain old Elmer's Wood Glue to put it together. Those toy boxes are made with 4 pieces of 1x6 wood, and then you cut one of those in half for the sides. Easy peasy.

I didn't know you could just use regular Elmer's Wood Glue. This might be my next project! My Abbey has a habit of destroying the twigloo I put her hay in and tossing the hay all throughout her cage! The little toy box/hay manger would probably last a lot longer, and be too heavy for her to tote around, I hope! (She once pushed her ceramic food dish from her "kitchen" on the top level all the way to the ground level! It scared me to death when I heard it crash! Luckily it didn't break, just lots of pellets everywhere.)