safe wood for bunny shelves

[bathtubhippo]

when we’re not home, our bunny, ringo, spends his time in a large cage in our living room (you can see it here, although i’m pleased to say we paid only $86 for it due to what must have been a pricing mistake when we ordered it!). in any case, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of wasted vertical space in his home. ringo is a real climber and pretty much loves to get as high as he possibly can, so for some time we’ve been thinking of building him a shelf or two to increase his play area in his pen. any recommendations on what types of commonly available wood to use and any other tips?

[wendyzski]

Well, you could start with a cardboard box with a couple of holes cut into it. He could climb/chew to his heart’s content!

[Beka27]

If you make something for him to climb on, will you be able to enclose the top so he can’t jump out? If you can make a ledge, it would be cool if you could make it high enough for his litterbox to go underneath, that way you’re not losing open floor space.

[bathtubhippo]

@wendy: he goes through a cardboard box every couple of weeks, so i’m looking for something that’s more semi-permanent!
@beka: the top actually is enclosed. i bought some wire shelves from home depot and rigged it up, so it’s easily accessibly. i was thinking the same as you–to build a ledge over the litter pan somehow.

but i’m not sure what kind of wood to buy that would be safe and easy to find.

[Scarlet_Rose]

Hi bathtubhippo! Plain, untreated pine board works great for a shelf with a few nails in the ends or cup hooks to hook around the horizontal wires of a cage. Do you happen to have a picture of the cage? This might help us come up with more ideas for you.

[bathtubhippo]

hi…and thanks for the tip on the untreated pine. i will look into that.

a basic picture of the cage itself is available at the link i posted in the top post. his area isn’t especially ornate–just his large litter pan in one corner, his food and water bowls in another corner, and a revolving cast of cardboard boxes in the other half of the pen. i can try and take a picture of it tomorrow, as it seems all the pictures i have are of ringo *outside* his pen!

[Scarlet_Rose]

Hmm, I am having trouble locating the link. Could you please re-post it? I would really like to take a look at it. Thanks!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FS4OYK <<-here's the cage

You could also make the ledge of the storage cubes-we make ledges in our cages at the shelter with the cubes and then floor it with coroplast or carpet for them.
Pine, balsawood, birch, cedar are all bunny safe woods-all hard woods or woods that have fruit with pits (i.e. cherry wood) are unsafe.

[RabbitPam]

K&K, I’ve been thinking about this myself so was waiting to read the replies. Can you describe (or picture) how to elevate the ledge and anchor it? I have some untreated wood boards, but the cage is wire and plastic so there’s nothing to nail them too, except each other. It would be nice to have a shelf connected to a corner of the cage, with a support but possible open to lie under.

[Beka27]

Pam: Could you just get 3 pieces of the wood and make an “E” shape, but without the inside line… like this: |__| and then turn it upside down…

[Vater Araignee]

Looking at the cage I see a “simple solution flaw”, its horizontal construction.
What you appear to have is wood running the perimeter of the top & bottom and two wires in between running the perimeter also.
Several ideas come to mind but without measurements I can be sure they would be sturdy enough.
I need to know the dimensions of the wood, The distance from the top piece of wood to the first horizontal wire, the distance from the first wire to the second and the distance from the second to the bottom piece of wood.

We should be able to design you a shelf that is sturdy and easily & inexpensively repairable.

[bathtubhippo]

i used to have ledges for him made of storage cubes with thick cardboard + attached cotton towels for flooring, as he’ll eat any kind of carpet he can get in his mouth. he destroyed and moved around the stuff so easily that i started to worry about his safety, if he moved/tore the shelves, so i am thinking of something more “semi-permanent” where he can destroy it but not overnight! i thought about constructing something along the lines of beka’s ‘E without the line’ and might end up doing that, because it’d be usable in a variety of situations.

@vater: the overall measurements are 46.1 x 6.5 x 36.6 inches. each piece of wood is about 2″. the distance from the top piece of wood to the first horizontal wire is 6″, the distance between wires is 20″, and the distance between the bottom wire and the bottom piece of wood is also 6″.

[Vater Araignee]

Excellent!
Knowing the spacing and how tall it is helps. I already have multiple ideas.
What dimensions would you like the shelf?
What types of tools do you have access to?
Are you willing to attach to the wooden frame?

[bathtubhippo]

What dimensions would you like the shelf?

well, the litter plan is approx. 2″ higher in the back then the first horizontal wire. it would have to be little higher than that, so he had full access with a little clearance.

What types of tools do you have access to?

this is a real hitch right now. for the next 2 months, we’re living in a loft apartment and do not have a lot of workspace or access to anything beyond a basic tool kit. this should change over the summer.

Are you willing to attach to the wooden frame?

would prefer not to. first, i’m not sure it would be very supportive. second, the pen breaks down, and attaching something to the wood would almost certainly compromise this feature. we are moving in about 2 months, so i’ll definitely need to break this thing down at that point.

all that said, i obviously would have more options if i waited to do something until the summer. i’m happy to hear any ideas that are a bit more involved (even if they’d have to wait until june or july to be executed) as well as simpler things i could throw together. any advice is much appreciated. thanks!

 

[Vater Araignee]

In order to keep the break down ability I would use 1″x2″ ‘s , bolts , washers and wing nuts.
Cut the 1×2 into 6 inch sections and pair them up.
Number each pair and make a line up mark across them.
Clamp and drill each pair with at least 4 holes.
You can use these to clamp onto the bars and rest your shelves on.
To make it slightly more involved you could peg the bottom of your boards and put holes into your braces so the shelves wont slide or just use 1 screw on each side.
Remember to pre-drill screw holes, it makes getting the screws in easier and eliminates the risk of splitting the lumber.

[bathtubhippo]

yeah, i don’t even have the tools to do that right now, but i do like the idea. i think i’ll revisit this in june after i move to a bigger place and can bring some of my tools and other stuff out of storage. thanks for all your responses, especially you vater. good ideas here.

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