Saturday, 3 September 2016

Degu Saucers Now For Sale!

Hi all,

I've now started selling my flying saucers so if anyone would like to buy one you can email me on louiselovesdegus@gmail.com I accept paypal payments only or visit my ebay listing:



Welcome to my listing for handmade, extra large, completely silent, flying saucers for small pets. I started making these saucers because I couldn't find any saucers large enough for my pet degus and as degus are very chewy pets I didn't want anything made of plastic. The design of a flying saucer is preferable to wheels as they provide a flat running area which is better for your pet's spine however if a saucer is too small it can cause your pets to be constantly running to the side. This saucer is large enough for degus to run completely straight. The top of the saucer is made from bamboo wood and the base from kiln dried pine, both of which are safe if chewed. The bearing is made from a skate wheel and has been chew-proofed with some metal band. The surface has been roughened using course sandpaper for grip. These saucers are big enough for more than one degu to run on, my three degus love running around on their saucers together. I made two of these saucers in November 2014 and they are used daily by my degus and I have never had any problems with them. The best thing about these saucers though is that they run completely silently, no more annoying rattling wheels you'll just hear the sound of their little feet!

It can take a little while for rodents to master the saucer so if your pets have been used to a wheel then it's best to leave both in the cage until they become accustomed to the saucer.

 












  • Totally silently spinning, no more rattling wheels
  • Made from bamboo and kiln dried pine so safe if chewed
  • Constructed with a skate wheel bearing & designed to last 
  • Simple, elegant design that will compliment any cage
  • Large enough for more than one degu to run on at the same time

For purchases please email louiselovesdegus@gmail.com and I will request the money via paypal.

Thanks for looking, hope you like them :)

Saturday, 12 September 2015

New Degu Cage Tour Video


A new video of the cages. I cleaned the cages 1 week ago and I haven't changed any of the bedding and they still look very fresh!

These cages are now 10 months old and they have no signs of wear at all, I'm so pleased with how well they are doing.

Sunday, 6 September 2015

Degu Cage Clean

Hi everyone,

Here's a little video of me cleaning out the cages. This took me an hour and a half so I've sped the video up a lot :)



The products I use are as follows:

Johnson's Clean and Safe Disinfectant for Small Pet
Timothy Feeding Hay
Wood Shavings  - I use the bigger size available in the shop
Straw Bedding

All from Pets @ Home

Sunday, 5 July 2015

Play Time

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted on here for a while but all is well with us and our ladies :) We've been to Download festival and then Glastonbury festival this last month so we are knackered to say the least! Anyway I thought I'd just post of a couple of videos of us playing with our tiny friends.

This video is of me, Millie & Peach and I'm feeding them natural, sugar-free puffed rice from Holland & Barrett (a UK health food shop).



This is a video of my fiancé Nick with Morpheus and Sky and they are enjoying some sunflower seeds



They are so funny to watch just speeding around the house :)

Sunday, 14 December 2014

Degu Videos

I just wanted to share a couple of photos & a video I took today, I only took them on my phone so not the greatest quality, apologies.

Here is one of the cages:



I had to remove some of the acrylic panels to avoid the reflections.


Morph and Sky looking super cute!

Morph is so chilled out when the camera is around, here are a couple of shots of her.



Only a short post today :)

Louise x

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

My Homemade Degu Cages

I spent all of yesterday furnishing the cages and getting them ready for moving in the ladies. Here are the finished products:


Here are some close ups of each level.

Top level 


The top level has the 35cm diameter wheel and the nest box. I hung the nest box from the ceiling using hooks and used some wooden play sticks as a ramp. Morph is kindly posing in the wheel for me :)

Second level


For the second level I used another branch and some clay pots for climbing. I've also got the offcuts of logs and some coconut shells that I bought from asda and hollowed out. At the back you can see one of the log staircases I made. They work really well and the girls can easily climb them up to the next level. Here is a photo of the little food table I made - the main purpose of this is just to keep the bowls off the ground so they don't get filled with sawdust. It's also super cute to watch them sitting at the tables nibbling their food.

Bottom level


I make and sell my Flying Saucers here http://r.ebay.com/vUadSo

The bottom level has the saucer I made and also the sand bath. I used a terracotta wall pot for the sand bath and I'm really pleased with it, it's big enough for the girls to roll around and the opening is really large so they can jump in and out with ease. Sky is sitting on the staircase wondering what I'm doing, she is a very timid little degu so I was surprised she sat here watching me!

As I was taking these photos Sky & Morph decided to have a little sit down haha - 


& finally just one last photo of the cages side by side. 


The girls seem really happy and it's so much fun watching them running around and exploring their new home. It was a lot of hard work but I'm really proud of the end result. 


How I Built My Degu Cages

The last 3 days have been extremely tiring but I'm delighted to say the cages are now built.


My original plan was to stack them on top of each other and keep them in the spare room where the old cage is but then we put them side by side in the lounge and decided we really liked them here. The wheels and the saucers I made run completely silently so the only sound the girls will make is when they chew at things or let out the occasional squeak.

I took some photos as I was completing the build - although not as many as I should have done, I just got a bit carried away with it...

Day 1:
I collected the melamine boards from B&Q and used their free wood cutting service to cut the pieces to size. It's a great service as the machine they use it accurate to the mm and you know that every cut will be completely straight. My Dad came with me as his car is bigger than mine and he has a garage at his house which I use to saw and hammer without disturbing anyone. I live in a flat so jig-sawing wouldn't go down to well.
First thing to do was to mark out where all my vents would go, this was super easy as I had my design in sketchup already so any measurements I needed to know I used the program to find out.


I then cut out each vent (all 12!) and we covered each hole with wire mesh and held it in place with builders band.


This looks like a really easy job but the mesh is very sharp where it's been cut and the builders band is extremely hard to work with.

The next thing I did was to cut out the pop holes in the levels with the jig saw and attach my kiln dried pine strips. I also then covered the edges of the melamine with more builders band.


It's worth adding the kiln dried pine to the edges of any holes as it stops all the sawdust from falling through the hole and making a pile underneath. The protection I used over the kiln dried pine was some angle beading (normally used for plastering) that I picked up from B&Q, it's £1.98 for a 3 metre length and it works great. see here

Next I assembled my front panels, I had originally intended for the front panels to be made from one solid piece of board but after B&Q had a mess up with my order I had to take smaller panels and this meant my front board had to come in two parts. First job was to put them together using some brackets and then run a strip of builders band along the back.


Along the top of these panels I stuck the glass runners down using a glue gun. The glass runners width was just shorter than the width of the panel so my Dad ironed on white edging strip along the top first. By this time we'd had enough so we called it a day and went out for a meal as it was my Dad's birthday.

Day 2:
I brought all the panels back to the flat and then came the task of assembling it. I started by screwing the front panels to the top of the ledges and marking out where the levels sit on the side panels. I was by myself so figured the easiest way would be to lay all the pieces on the floor on their sides and do it that way. I screwed the side panels to the top and bottom first and then slotted in both the levels screwing through the sides to ensure it was secure.



Once this was done I just placed the back panels on top and screwed them into place from the top and bottom and screwing along the levels too so they didn't sag into the middle. Before doing this I had pre-drilled holes in my back panel for the wheel to slot into.


I then stood the cage up and pushed my aluminium tube supports into place (they are held in place by the pressure) and glue gunned the other half of the glass runners to the underside of my levels.


Then came the moment of truth...the acrylic sheets, they actually fit and I was so relieved. Everywhere I have read online says to only order the acrylic once the cage is assembled but this would mean assembling the cage and then waiting another week for the acrylic which I knew I would hate. I ordered the acrylic sheets to be exactly 10mm shorted than the gap they would fit into and it worked great, they fit perfectly. They have about a 6mm gap above them which is perfect because it means you can easily lift them out for cage cleaning. Of course once this was complete I had to do the same thing again with the second cage!

I'm so delighted with how they look though and was pleasantly surprised and how much they look like the design.


Day 3:
Finally I used a pet safe, non toxic silicone around all the ledges so it's waterproof and nothing will get down the sides and start lifting the melamine coating. I then left the silicone for 24 hours to cure before I could start furnishing. I also ran a strip of builders band down the inside of the back panel so they wouldn't start chewing at the seam between the two panels. I thought the silicone would be an easy task but I was very wrong. I'd never used silicone before and I managed to get it everywhere, I even got some in the ends of my hair which will not come out - thankfully I'm having a haircut on Thursday...