The girls, or at least one of them, has chewed their way out of their cage. It’s a Furplast Furret Plus that originally belonged to Petal. I was concerned when I first got the cage that it had a lip inside the base, and sure enough Petal had a go a chewing it, but fortunately she didn’t do too much damage. These girls, however, are destructive little madams.
The two corners of the cage where the girls have been chewing
I had hoped they would stop chewing when they had settled in, but they seem to have got worse. They have lots of things in their cage which they can and do chew. Smudge and Muffin, both chew the bars a lot and they are fetching the green paint off, in most places now it is down to the metal. I’m not too worried about this because they won’t destroy the cage doing that.
One downside to having destructive rats in the Furret Plus is, because it was flat pack, so much of it is held together with plastic. I know it is meant as a ferret cage, so I’m not blaming the cage. Its just a pain at the moment, because size and access wise – it has two doors- it is a great cage.
I do love the girls, very much, and I understand that they have had a crummy life, being abandoned and obviously not being taken care of properly. Since having them and giving them regular exercise both Sugar and Pearl have lost weight and we have seen their energy levels increase significantly. Smudge and Muffin, who are both tiny Dumbo rats, have bulked up. They were such skinny little things when we got them, like sausages with legs and big ears :-).
As for the cage, Derek has made a wooden frame that sits on the ledge the girls have been chewing. We had thought about sticking plastic over the lip, but that would have to be stuck down and if they chewed that we’d be in trouble. With the wood they can still chew it, but it can be removed for cleaning and replaced as necessary. So, as long as they don’t figure out that they can lift it up and still get to the plastic underneath we should be okay.
The wooden frame Derek made for the girls cage
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