Coroplast...?

Question

Okay I was looking at this site, http://www.guineapigcages.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/5210/cat/512/limit/recent for home made guinea pig cages. Many people say they use coroplast as the bottom of the cage, and I know you can get coroplast in sheets but I don't know how you shape it like a cage? How do you get the edges to form a border, instead of just laying there like a flat peice of paper.

Also, I can't find the grids that most of the people are using for the top portions of the cages. I looked on the wal-mart website and found the 4 cube one, but that is fourteen dollars and I don't think that is cost effective when building this cage.

Answer 1

I've built C & C cages for both bunnies and guinea pigs. You can find the grids at Target and office supply stores too. The easiest way to work with the coroplast is to score one side with a utility knife... you just cut through the top layer on one side, not all the way through. Then you flip the sheet over and fold the sides and ends up to form the box-like bottom for the cage. I used a hot glue gun to glue the end flaps to the side flaps. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Well the above responder has nearly said it all - a box cutter will do the trick! It's really neat material. I used duct tape on the OUTSIDE of the corners to hold it together - I don't know whether that's safer to have around piggies than glue or not, but they've never messed with it and can't really get to it anyway. I got my square grids from Bed Bath & Beyond and while they were on the expensive side (I think it was about $15) there were plenty of squares in there to build a whole cage (certainly more than four). Anyway, that's still far less than what you'd pay for a "guinea pig-sized" cage from a pet store, which won't have near the area your piggies need anyway. I also bought an extra set of those grids and use them to block off areas behind the TV and other off-bounds areas when I let my piggies play on the floor. They're pretty handy, and worth the price if you ask me. If you run out of connectors for the number of squares you're using and you want to make a fence-type barrier just use twist ties. Although you've probably seen plenty already on that great site, I have a few pictures of my cages on my dorky site:
http://www.secondstarillustrations.com/threepigs.htm
Which you're welcome to peruse. Good luck, and good for you for looking into C&C cages, they're really the way to go!