Ann Vole
Member
I wish to try making runwheels as a hobby/cottage industry. I know some people recommend only using solid bottoms but others say fine mesh bottoms are fine and stay clean longer. I was wondering if any of you have opinions on the bottoms and suggestions for improvements over what is available now. For the "silent" ones with bearings, I have not seen any with a form of suspension to handle the shocks and bangs of running chins. I like the wire-frame ones with a curve in the wire because they do dampen the thumping noise of vigorous running... how important is that aspect you you? Pinch zones can be eliminated by having only one side supporting the hub and put a solid disk on that side. How important is that aspect to you? I have made the spinning disk style of runwheel but find them to be noisier for thumping and take up a lot of cage space. I also had some gerbils and mice who always ran weird (when loose in a room) because they used a disk a lot. Do you prefer a disk and why? What size do you prefer for chinchilla runwheels? Too big and they don't fit in the cage but of course, bigger is more like running loose. I find degus and other smaller rodents prefer to run side-by-side even on very big wheels (lots of room to go single file) so was wondering if it would be worth the effort to experiment with wheels wide enough for 2 chinchillas.
