September 11th, 2008 by Missy

Well, I picked up the cage today! It’s a Ferret Nation model 142, although the top portion of it has been removed so it’s basically an FN141. Which is perfect.. a 142 would have been WAY too big for my living room and for two rats. Quite honestly, the 141 is a lot bigger than I expected it to be. I mean, I knew that it was a large cage but I didn’t realize exactly how large. I was kind of hoping it would tuck under the counter where it hangs into the living room, but it’s too tall for that. Ah well, the rats will hopefully enjoy having all of the space. Unfortunately, I now realize that all of the hammocks that I made are too small =/ I made them knowing that they were a little smaller than what most people have, but I figured that it would be better that way since the rats will be babies when I get them, but the hammocks just look comical in the cage!

I mean, I can always make more since I have tons of fabric still (I haven’t even touched three of the four fabrics) but it’s a bit disappointing since I spent a lot of time making the ones that I did and it feels like such a waste of fabric. Hopefully I’ll be able to find something to do with them. Maybe after I make a few bigger ones and get them into the cage, I’ll find somewhere to put these little puny ones..

September 10th, 2008 by Missy

My darling, adorable, wonderful husband took me to Joann’s yesterday to buy like $100 worth of fabric to make hammocks for my sweet rats! People on goosemoose make and sell hammocks (and for very reasonable prices) but I figured it would be fun and cheaper to make my own. Not to mention, then I can really pick any fabric at all that I want, and don’t need to be limited by what someone else has in stock. I decided to go for an elegant theme with my cage, rather than something cutesy / animal print / etc. Dan picked the red / yellowish one (second from the left) and I picked the rest. We also bought coordinating fleeces to line all of the hammocks (and to make floor liners so we can get right to work on litterbox training the rats) and metal eyelets so they won’t be tempted to chew the attachment points.

Here’s what I’ve completed so far. This is my least favourite of the fabrics (actually the one that Dan picked is, but he picked it so..) so I decided to make my first set of hammocks out of this one, so that I wouldn’t care so much about any mistakes (as, afterall, the ones done in my favourite fabric will hopefully look perfect). I don’t really like the basket thing very much — the handles didn’t work out the way I had been envisioning and the fabric pulled a bit while I was sewing it.. I must not have pinned it well enough. In any case, I’m happy with the standard hammock and the “double decker” hammock. Think I’ll try my hand at a triangular one now!