Mouse, Chloe, and all things related.
This page contains rat related things. A few links to some rat websites, and of course some rat pictures.
First some rat pages.
Rat Behavior and Biology - Great all around rat page
RatzoRescue - Where we got our rats
...more to come
Now for rat pictures... At some point I will make the rat picture page mach the layout and color scheme of the rest of my site. Until then it will just be plain old thumbnails with links.
Pics Page 1
Rat Cage version 1.0
The rat cage I built myself. The base is a simple 10"x20" aquarium(which I guess I didn't build). I then went to home depot and bought a few things: finishing nails, wood, wire screen(or mesh or something).
The wood was labeled as 1"x2"x8' but was in reality about 1/2"x1"x8' I cut it into 2 10" pieces, 2 20" pieces, and 4 2' pieces(use longer lengths where needed for a taller age or for a larger aquarium. 2' is about as high as is easy to get things in and out from the top, so a side door may be considered for much larger). The 10" and 20" pieces were made into a rectangle as seen below. Then I put the 2' pieces on the inside edge of the rectangle such that about 1/2" was sticking out on one side of the rectangle, and the other 1'11" or so stuck out the other side(the 1/2" hooks on the inside lip of the aquarium to keep the whole thing in place). See this picture for a better idea of what I did.
To finish off I wrapped the wire around the outside and staple gunned it in place. The Frame was done. I used some scraps of the wire mesh to make some additional levels which were cut to fit such that only machined edged were inside the cage (to protect the rat feet). For the walkways and the one corner platform I folded the wire under to make smooth edges. I joined the platforms to the cage by sewing the mesh with the wire that was used to wrap it when I got it from home depot. It worked quite well. At the end of the sewing I spiraled the wire around part of the mesh to tie it off. Take a look through the rat pictures and you will see a number of pictures of the cage.
Rat Cage version 2.0
So the new cage is a bit larger... I had some plywood left over from a previous project and I decided to use that as the base and top of my cage... The plywood was 22"x62" which when cut in half gave me a 22"x31" footprint. The next decision was how tall to make it. I went over to home depot to look at wood lengths and the wood came (for the most part) in eith 8' lengths or 12' lengths. I decided to go big. V1.0 of the cage came out to be around 4.2 cubic feet, the new cage standing 6' high weighs in at 28.4 cubic feet (both volumes do not take into account the loss of space due to the supporting wood).
To make the frame I took one piece of the plywood and put one piece of 2"x4"x8' int he corner and secured it with an angle bracket. I repeated this for each corner alternating such that the 2"x4"s were in opposing corners, and the 2"6"s were in opposing corners. The supporting pieces were all oriented such that their widest dimension ran along the widest dimension of the cage (because without doing this and using a 2"x6" on at least one side, the wire mesh, or hardware cloth, would not be wide enough). I flipped and then repeated. Doing this all by hand was a lot of work! Each angle bracket had eight screws that were very near the plywood bottom or the supporting wood so that turning the screwdriver was difficult. My hand still hurts three days later...
The frame was fairly strong when all four posts were connected, and moving it around was much easier. I laid it on its side and began work on the wire sides. I had chosen the dimensions of the wood to give about 1" of overlap on each side at the wides point, and there was about 3" extra on the narrow side that had to be cut off. I went for overkill here and secured it far better than it needs to be. I put in over 800 staples for the whole cage. WIth one remaining side unwired(a wide one) I needed to make a door.
The door is made up of two 2"x3"x8" cut to 6' and 22" leaving 2" blocks. The door is a little oversized because I didnt really have a plan on how to make it, so the whole cage must be raised slightly off the ground to make room for the door. This is not a bad thing as it allows for more than 1/2" overlap at he bottom(beyone the plywood) and supporting it makes it so the door would not stick on the carpet as a door sized correctly and resting on the ground would. The pattern for the door was the same as that for the frame of the first cage (as far as overlapping is concerned). I secured the corners with tie plates, which are just small pieces of steel with holes drilled in them, and mending plates, which are small 1"x4" pieces of steel with slots bent/punched out such that the metal that was in the slot acts like a nail sticking out the bottom(you can sometimes see large plates on odd shapped joints in attics/rafters). Wire was stapled to the inside of the door, and hinges were added. To secure the latch I used the leftover 2" blocks to raise up the latch point on the main frame of the cage. I was disappointed in my self because I had done the whole project without a drill, but had to get one to predrill holes in the small blocks so that the screws would not split them. I could have saved a lot of effort by getting the drill at the begining.
Total parts cost are as follows:
plywood - leftover/free
2"x4"x12' - $4.66
2"x6"x12' - $6.69
2"x3"x8' * 2 - $3.38 ($1.69 each)
3" angle brackets * 8 - $4.72 ($0.59 each)
tie plates * 4 - $1.68 ($0.42 each)
mending plates * 4 - $1.44 ($0.36 each)
hing 2pk - $2.99
latch 2pk - $3.49
screws - $3.85
wire mesh (hardware cloth) - $21.95
Total - $54.85