Hamster Kingdom

16th September 2008

From top to bottom: Crittertrail X for Dee, Daddy Hamster’s bin cage which is connected to his Crittertrail on the left, the Robo girlies’ bin cage, & the dwarf Campbells’ cage at the very bottom.

Anybody who ever said or makes it seem constructing a bin cage is easy, let me tell you …. it’s not. Nobody ever told me, but don’t expect perfectly straight cuts (unless you have ALL the right tools & a seasoned handy person).

I used these 2 instructions, but modified them:

  1. Pet Website – Make a Homemade Hamster Bin Type Cage
  2. eHow – How to Make a Hamster Cage

Those instructions are too complicated & use too many tools that I can’t afford to buy just for this project.

I minimized the materials needed to these:

  1. Plastic bins;
  2. Hardware mesh (found in the gardening/outdoors section of your local DIY store);
  3. Wire clipper/cutter;
  4. Machine screws with nuts & washers (I used size 1/2″ washers, #10 nuts & washers, & #10 machine screws. Each bin uses about 10-20 of each. When in doubt, buy extra & they’re not expensive);
  5. A drill & various sizes of drill bits (make sure you have a drill bit that’s the same size as the machine screws);
  6. If you decide to connect the bin cages to tubes, you will need a hole saw that can be attached to a drill. You don’t need to buy the one to drill through metals, because they’re expensive. Opt for the one for woods.

And this is how I modified the methods:

  1. Remember to measure twice & cut once.
  2. Instead of cutting the lids, I cut windows on the side, so I can stack the bins. Besides, I think cutting the lid would be harder.
  3. Instead of needing to cut extra windows (& placing a wire mesh) to hold the the water bottle, all I did was drill 3 holes creating a triangle pattern: 1 hole big enough for the teat to come through & 2 smaller holes where a wire can be attached to secure and hold the water bottle (picture of blue water bottle). But if you have a different type of water bottle (like the purple one in the picture), all I did was drill 1 hole & place a double sided tape on the water bottle holder so it won’t swing.
  4. How I attach the tubes to the bin cage: to secure the tubes, place the connector ring inside the bin. Alternatively, you can use duct tapes, but they’re ugly.

Posted in Hamster adventure, Hamster care | Comments (6)

6 Responses to “Hamster Kingdom”

  1. kisetsu Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 1:19 am

    Wish I have the space in my house to create bins for my hammies. (T.T)

    Your creation is well done. So neat and it looks very professional. Nice!

  2. wiffy Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 1:23 am

    wow, very cool indeed! :D

  3. admin Says:
    September 17th, 2008 at 2:31 am

    Well, I didn’t do anything much, because I hired my bf haha!
    Kisetsu, I think it’s not because you don’t have space, but because you have too many hamsters :p

  4. kisetsu Says:
    September 18th, 2008 at 7:35 am

    Oh yes, that’s true. And the thing is they don’t like to stay together. (T.T) Each ham has a cage for themselves. (T.T)

  5. pempot Says:
    September 20th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    hey..thats need a lot of hard work but its damn worthy…my hamsters will love me..if i do the cages like yours, I always dream about that

  6. krispy Says:
    July 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    I went and got a smaller one for now as I dont have much room either. But!, its soooo much easier to keep everything clean. (Mine love to throw their bedding all over the place and the floor) My hamsters are happy and I can even build them a tower as seen above except I will connect them with tubes. Kisetsu Im not sure how big your cages are, but they have bins almost the same size Im sure if not a bit bigger but believe me I understand what you mean by not enough space, but this way they are happy because they are enclosed and not climbing on wire all day long and if you put enough bedding they can even burrow like hamsters like to do. :D

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