Question:
We are going to be making some cages, I think melamine but I have a few questions:
- Do your chins chew the melamine? How can you prevent it? How do you make holes through the melamine so they can get to the different levels? If the ledges are regular wood, pine ect, do they pee on it? Im getting rid of my cages because they are junk. I just don't want another new cage that they chew to peaces. Oh, is melamine easy to clean? Anyting else you gan suggest about melamine would be helpful. I did a search here and saved everyones melamine cages on a program called Picasa so I can get some ideas. Im so excited and almost have enough cash to build four cages.


Answer:
I have two melamine cages. The only piece of melamine that they are able to chew is the middle floor (which has a hole in it for access to the second level). So far, they haven't touched it. Their shelves are made of pine and they chew those pretty good. They don't pee on their shelves. The girls use the litter at the bottom of the cage and the boys have a litter pan on the middle floor (where they like to pee). Melamine is VERY easy to clean. I use a vinegar solution and it wipes easily.


Answer:
I love my melamine cages. They are by far my favorites. I have 3 of them and they are very easy to clean. I just wipe them down with a mild bleach solution and then rinse well. I have had no chewing at all except of course on my pine shelves. I like them best because they can't throw any pine chips or hay out. It really cuts down on clean up time.


Answer:
I like them best because they can't throw any pine chips or hay out.
Mine still manage to throw hay, shavings and poop out!


Answer:
One little tip with melamine caging ... don't use an over abundance of it like we did (unless you get the really thin stuff) ... or it will get very heavy very fast ... we made our multi-cage unit entirely out of 5/8 inch thick melamine, with dimensions of 4' wide by 6' high by 2' deep ... with 2 horizontal dividers making three zones, and one vertical divider cutting 1 zone in two with the option of moving that divider out. This thing is a monster and it took us forever to move it around ... aching muscles and a broken lamp was the result of the first move ... I think next time when we move that we are just going to dismantle is that build it back up ... but it is quite easily to clean.


Answer:
I put wheels and handles on my cages. I also used 1/2" melamine for the larger cage and it worked just as well.


Answer:
for my cages.. we used pressed board.. (pressed plywood?? like you use for floors) then used tile board on top of that.. and it worked great..
good luck Courtney


Answer:
One disadvantage of melamine is that you have to pre-drill the holes. It helps to have two drills so you aren't changing bits every two seconds.


Answer:
Mine is made out of 5/8 " melamine and I put heavy duty swivel wheels on the bottom. It goes anywhere with the push of a finger! In the bottom of mine I had a 4" high tin litter pan made and I very rarely get much hay and stuff flying out. Maybe the occational poop flung out...


Answer:
Thanks everyone. I got some great advice here. It sounds like it is much easier to clean. Those wheels sound great Pam! The problem I have is my chins are chew-aholics and pee everywhere except where there supposed to, LOL. So the melamine would be great. That tile idea sounds good too. That would be pretty easy to clean. I got some ideas now. Im trying so hard to save up. I was going to do this much sooner but money has been pretty tight.