Finally.....moving my boys to new cage!

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mishellyshel

Chin Slave
Joined
Mar 16, 2009
Messages
4,633
Location
New Jersey
So after months & months I am finally moving my 2 chins to their new home made mansion! while it did take my fiance' extremely long to make it I am pretty happy with the outcome. I decided to leave most of the shelves raw KDP instead of covering with metal. I have put them both in separately a couple times and once in together. The cage is split down the middle vertically so they will live next to each other not with eachother. since there is only a wire wall between them instead of their cages being next to each other it was quite noisy on their joint stay.
Since my fiance' is going fishing all weekend and my son is with his father this weekend, i have decided to sleep on the couch and make sure everything is okay with them, since it will be their first nite in the cage.
I really wanted my Richie to be in his new home for a little bit before malo takes him from me.
Real quick cute story about Richie & the cage. The first time I put him in it he was so afraid that he kept running back to me........like to say "hey mom, im scared, protect me". It was really heartwarming to know that he trusts me that much. He now seems to really like the space and I hope he has a few good days or weeks in there.
I am excited to set up their new living quarters and I hope it all works out ok.
Thanks for listening.
I will post some pix tonight.
 
It all sounds great! I'll check back for pics later on then. :)
 
So I moved them finally at 2 am. Slept on the couch just in case something happened.
They seem ok. Stitch is bouncing off everything but kinda coming to the front I guess wondering when he is going back to his little cage??
Richie doesnt seem too thrilled. I think it is because the cage is made from wire and my fingers cant really reach in there. Plus it is a little difficult to open, so I can just open it and pick him up like I do several times a day.
I am hoping that by tomorrow they will be a little more used to it and me too!
It is a gorgeous huge cage but just not as easy to open and interact with them as the other cage, so I guess it is a learning curve for all of us.
My fiance' took my normal camera fishing, so I used my good one which may be too high megapixel to upload, but I will try.
Is it normal for them to be less than thrilled?? I just dont want to stress them, which is why I was putting them in there over the last week for an hour or so.
 
I don't think it's a matter of them being less thrilled, it's just that it's a change and we all know these guys are creatures of habit and do get out of sorts when things change suddenly. I am sure they'll absolutely love their new, bigger and improved cage in not time.

Now on to the pics girl!
 
ok finally uploaded a couple pix. they are doing ok. Stitch loves the new cage. he bounces all around, is very comfortable and lays in the strangest positions. he is very happy.
Richie is not a huge fan, but he is also very sick. i spoke to his vet today and we are going to see how he does this weekend and unfortunately i think he is at the point where is quality of life is not what it should be and it is close to the end. :(
I am still getting used to the cage. It is much different and so much bigger than I cant reach the back. also with all the "security" on it, I find it a little more difficult to get into but we are going to tweak it this weekend.
Stitchie Pies likes to chew the shelves and loves his lava thingie in there. Richie seems to like to hide behind the stairs!
 

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The cage looks great - I really like that side by side design vs a top/bottom layout. Is the back wall metal? How does that compare on cleaning with melamine?
 
yes the whole back wall is sheet metal, the kind that doesnt corrode and some of the shelves and some of the exposed wood.
i never had melamine but it just wipes clean. it is a little harder to keep clean than my other cage because it is so deep and i cant reach the back shelf, but i am getting a liitle shop vac that apparently i have in my attic, so i am going to see if that helps and i dont scare my chins too much. to clean the wood if they urinate on it, i have been using hydrogen peroxide and some of the shelves are fleece covered on the one side because my chin is handfed and pees a lot. i have a spare set of fleece, so when i am washing one set the other set can go in. plus they have a litter box on the bottom floor. i just got metal cake pans from the dollar store and put pine shavings in there. they use it sometimes.
 
i know it is hard to see but on the bottom there are stairs, then the next level has a ramp with wooden block notches, on the top level there is a bridge that my fiance' made himself. also between the two sides, each side has 3 mulberry ledges in steps. and there are a couple other wooden ledges and each guy has a lava wedge thingie.
it has a lot of cool spots for them to jump & hide.
the only thing that i regret is that the front of the doors has smaller openings and i cant give as many scritches. but i am going to home depot this weekend to see about some other options.
 
Thats really nice.

I hope your little Ritchie starts to enjoy it more.
 
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