DIY Exercise Wheels & Saucers

These saucers are now available for purchase here: 38cm Silent Flying Saucer

Here is a quick guide to show how I have made my flying saucers and running wheels.

The degus international community forum states: The minimum diameter is 33cm/13" for wheels and 42cm/16.5" for saucers. At the time I made my saucers their minimum recommended diameter was 38cm so that is the size I used.

I had been struggling to find a good flying saucer for my girls for ages and I had seen videos of saucers made from the Ikea snudda lazy susan but firstly, it seems it is always out of stock in the UK and secondly it sounded really loud.

For the main plate I used a large wooden chopping board.

I used a roller blade wheel for the bearing and attached it using nuts and bolts.

 Firstly I had to saw off the handle, I used a coping saw for this so as to get a nice rounded cut.

I then found the centre of the circle using This Technique and drilled a hole for my bolt to go through.

I then made the base for the saucer sit on using some kiln dried pine I had left over from the build. (One of the pieces is a bit chewed already as I used it for the base of my previous saucer)

I then cut a hole out of the piece of wood using a hole saw bit on my drill for the roller blade wheel to sit in. I chose to do this so my wheel would sit into the wood and my girls wouldn't be able to get to it and chew at the rubber. You don't have to do this step you can protect the wheel with some builders band or something similar instead.

I put a longer bolt through the centre of the plate and then sat the wheel on top with 3 bolts ready to fix to the base.

 Then I used a computer vent cover to screw into the base so that I could attached the bolts to it and used more nuts to hold it all in place. These kind of vents can be bought from eBay in packs of 3 for 99p.

Finally the last step was to roughen the surface of the saucer with some sandpaper for grip.

I have also just made some new wheels using the exact same method but made from large 35cm diameter aluminium cake tins purchased from this site: Cake Craft Shop
They are going to go into the new cage and so I haven't had a chance to test them out yet - as soon as I do I will post an update but I am hoping they work well. I've used extra long bolts here as they are going to attach directly to the back of the cage.


I have been using the saucers for 3 months now and I absolutely love them, they spin completely silently and the girls love them too.