Earlier in the week I put the bedding in ready. I wanted to get the Carefresh stuff from Pets at Home because it's dust free which will be nicer for the jirds, and for B, who starts sneezing from anything remotely dusty! I got a 14 litre pack, and I was expecting to need about half of it. To my shock and horror the whole pack was needed! At £5 a pack Carefresh isn't exactly the economical choice, so I decided to look for something else online. After a bit of searching I was very pleased to find Megazorb which is exactly the same bedding, but you can buy an 85 litre pack from Amazon for £13.75 delivered. The only problem will be where a giant bag of bedding will go in our little flat. The solution? Vacuum storage bags! I shall flatten the big bag of bedding into something more manageable. Genius I thought! I'll let you know if it works...
Anyway, bedding issue aside, to complete the house, I bought some little screw eye things from Homebase to mount the ladders on to, and used a hammer and nail to make little pilot holes to help make screwing them in easier. Although some areas were quite awkward to reach I got there in the end without hammering my fingers too much! The only problem came when I dropped the nail into the nicely laid out bedding. Talk about needle in a haystack. I managed to find it luckily. The ladders hooked on easily and I used some pliers to close their hooks so they don't unhook themselves when the jirds jump on them. I also coupled two ladders together to make a big suspension bridge (again closing the hooks in the middle). Have a look at the pics to see the ladders in all their glory! I'm now quite jealous of the jirds, it looks well fun in there!
The last bit was drilling some more ventilation holes in the back, to make sure the jirds have enough fresh air when the glass is closed. B had taken the glass out for me, so it was easy to do the drilling. Unfortunately in my excitement at getting the ladders in I didn't anticipate that they would now be in the way. I had great fun trying to be a contortionist and winding my arm with the drill around the ladders to make the holes! Again, I got there in the end! We then put the glass back - the right way round this time - and that was it!
Well, enough writing, here are the pics of the finished article! Hope you like it.
Hi, how big is your setup and how deep do you plan on making the subtrate? I used4 megazorb once but I actually found it very dusty, and now use aspen. Looking forward to seeing the jirds!
ReplyDeleteIt's like a jird tv set, lol! I bet they'll be fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteIt's 3ft wide, nearly 3ft tall, and about 1.5ft deep. As they're only little at the moment the bedding is about 5cm deep - that seems to be enough for them to dig down into. I can always add more. The Megazorb seems fine, much better than sawdust at any rate. I'm interested to know what aspen is though! How much is it in comparison?
ReplyDeleteForgot to add that the total depth of bedding I can put in is about 10-15cm. The bit of wood at the bottom keeps it all in nicely.
ReplyDeleteaspen is like fine shredded bits of wood, its one of the better substrates as it is the least dusty, but it is more expensive than other stuff.
ReplyDeletei was thinking of getting jirds but i am not sure about the noise, how noisy are they?
I think the main noise culprits tend to be wheels (the wooden one I got is noise free as well as being comfortable for their feet and safe to chew), and wire - if you have a wire cage they will chew it and that does make a racket.
ReplyDeleteI had my last pair in my bedroom and didn't really notice the noise until I tried to go to sleep. Their general rummaging and banging does get noisy at that point! I had to move them to a different room in the end! We have the boys in the living room and you can't really hear them, especially not over the TV.
hi, where did you get that housing from as I am looking for a similar size at 1.5ft deep.
ReplyDeletevivariums are either to big or too small, and the tanmk and cage topper is also quite expensive.
thanks