C&C Cage

For my 21st birthday, I received a Guinea Pig from my parents. It was something i always wanted and after years and years of begging, they finally gave in.

Meet Abby, my crazy haired female friend. She was the best Guinea pig I could have ever had. She slept when I did, I sang her to sleep, and she only made noise when she was hungry. The one thing I absolutely hated, two things actually, is 1.) she chewed through everything and 2.) when she went to the bathroom, she always managed to ruin the bottom pan of the cage. When I say she chewed through everything, I mean EVERYTHING: blankets, towels, cage liners, water bottles, you name it, and she chewed it. I could not get her to stop. As for #2, I remember buying about 2 cages a year for her because I was never able to completely scrub it clean..total of 8 cages!! Finally I had enough and did research. I decided on a C&C Cage except everywhere I looked they were insanely expensive. Here is where YouTube played a big part.

So after watching a couple videos, I started gathering my supplies: 2 different fleece patterns as her new bedding, coroplast, zip ties, and 2 boxes of Rubbermaid's wire storage shelving. Her new bedding is fleece which is healthier for them and easier to clean, you take it out, dump it outside, put a new one in, throw old one in the washer/dryer, and you're done! I do recommend training pads under the fleece because you need something to soak up the pee which is another plus about fleece: pee soaks right through and poop gets trapped on top. It is also better health wise because you're not breathing in all the fumes from the pee or pet dander while you're trying to dump the bedding out. I was also allergic to my guinea pig and let me tell you, once I switched to fleece, my allergies were more manageable. The coroplast we ordered online, it is just corrugated plastic.

Okay so once you take out the wire shelving, set it up the way you'd like. Some people prefer two stories, some prefer a 3'x4' set-up, whatever. Do it how you want to and use the zip ties to securely fasten loose ends. Our C&C Cage has a "lid" on top because we have 3 cats and we didn't want to come home one day to find Abby missing so creating a top was a necessity for us. As you can see, Shane's sitting on the floor and the cage is taller than him. That brings us to the final picture I have.

<-- Our final product of putting it together. We have the C&C Cage on top with our lid, 2 storage compartments under the left side of the cage to store pet supplies, under those: two bigger compartments to house our two litter boxes. It is an L-shaped cage so under the right side, we have a huge lounging area for the cats and they each have their own cubbies.



There is no tutorial for sizing and cutting the coroplast because before we got a chance to finish the cage, Abby suddenly passed away. So if you would like to finish building a cage, you will have to look it up on your own. I am trying to convince Shane to get another one, or two, and if that happens, I promise I will finish this tutorial. There is a lot more we want to do with it though like wrapping fabric around it so the cat, storage, and boxes are "hidden" from our visitors.



Shane just walked through the door so it's time to make dinner! Thank you to everyone who reads this. See you tomorrow!

Much Love,