C&C Cage Hazard Warning
In recent times, C&C (Cubes and Coroplast) cages have grown gradually in popularity and have taken over a serious segment of the small animal pet habitat market. A fast internet search will reveal many web sites that now offer directions for building basic C&C cages. Additionally, many C&C cage sellers have appeared online and offer C&C cages in kit form. The main reasons for the booming popularity of this cage technology is that 1) very large cages are available - typically much bigger than those sold in pet stores and 2) C&C cages are relatively inexpensive. By virtue of these factors "the consumer can get plenty of cage for the money. But as the old proviso goes: Let the buyer beware. There is one serious potential hazard that the responsible pet owner must watch for when obtaining or building their own C&C cage.
As I discussed before, many sites offer instructions on building easy, basic C&C cages. Many of them also list sources for materials. A few nationwide department store chains are mentioned as sources for metal grids. The difficulty is that a lot of this information is now several years old and some of the grid sources have altered their products.
Not many years ago, one of the nation's dept. store chains was a great spot to buy grids for C&C cages. They were sold as cube or shelving unit kits. The kits contained both the metal grids and plastic connectors required to fasten them together. The square grids were 14-inches on each side and were laid out in a 9-space by 9-space grid. So, each opening was about 1.5 inches square. And these girds made absolutely wonderful cages.
As the economy took a turn for the worse, the company had this product re-designed in order to take metal out of it and save cost. The new design now contained grids that had only 8 spaces per side. Therefore, each space was slightly bigger - only around a 5th of an inch. No big deal if you were building a shelf to hold stuffed animals, comic books or your hat collection from Sweden. However , that 5th of an inch was a very big deal to C&C cage builders and owners.
Right after the design change, guinea pig rescue organizations began receiving reports of guinea pig strangulation deaths. Many of the organizations started issuing warnings to avoid 8x8 grids and only use 9x9 grids. Several also made contact with C&C cage stores with the same caution. In fact , it was thru contact with these organizations that our company first heard of this issue.
After deciding on the C&C technology, you will have 2 choices in obtaining your cage. You can design and build your cage from the start out of grids, corrugated plastic and other hardware that you get yourself. Or you can order your cage in kit form and build it with the instructions and materials provided. Either way, be absolutely certain to use only grids with spacing of 1.5 inches or smaller. When using 14-inch grids, be certain to use only 9x9 girds and absolutely avoid 8x8 grids.
We here at BlueStoneCommerce are guinea pig owners as well as guinea pig cage sellers. We all know what pigs like and what they want in a guinea pig cage to be healthy, safe and comfortable. So , if you're searching for a lot of guinea pig cage for the money, Click on one of the resource area links to visit our internet stores.
