Hello I just wanted to show everyone the new cage we are building. It's 4 ft. by 4ft. by 5ft. We made it with apoxi paint, lumber and galenized steel mesh. I am so exited and I just wanted to show everyone this.

Do you mean galvanized steel? If it's the case, it is not safe, the acidity of food and urine reacts with the zinc of the galvanisation, which is toxic in high dose, and gliders ingest it while licking their paws...

Same goes with epoxy paint, epoxy is supposdly safe only when it's totally polymerized and washed several times, and even then, it still has the potential to reject bisphenol, and is not meant to be ingested either...

For the lumber, it really depends on which wood it is, but if it's oak or pine or fir, those are toxic to glider if they chew on it, also, there's the problem of possible fungicide/insecticide treatment the wood may have received...

Oh the galvanized steels completely covered with paint so they will not get to it even if they try, it has multiple layers of paint. The lumber is completely coated too, and it is pine. As for the paint we are waiting for it to completely dry. We only used epoxy because it needed to be pee proof. The last cage I had was bought from exotic nutrition, was rusting within the first month because of the pee problem. thats why we went with a homemade cage. This cage is about four times the size as our old cage for the same price and it will turn plastic so it wont rust. Sorry for being to vague.

ok :)
I'm still unsure about the epoxy, even if it is theoretically safe for food contact, it still is not ingestable, and some gliders have a tendancy to chew on mesh and wood surface

I agree with sjusovare posts.

If you are going to house gliders in this cage, start taking pictures of the gliders from nose to tail top and bottom so you will recognize if they have any reactions from the metal, paint, and wood.

First sign of hair loss, irritated skin, acting any differently, or drastic weight loss get them out of that cage pronto. Don't even ask here first just get them in a glider safe cage, then ask for help.

I have pictures of gliders that have had allergic reactions to essential oils and other products. It can take months for a glider to recover from it, if they fully recover. It seriously is not something to play around with.

I don't normally use scare tactics and I'm not trying to here either but I have seen what allergic reactions and toxins can do to a glider first hand. So please, be prepared with a back up glider safe cage and pay attention to the gliders appearances and behaviors.

Yea I'll watch out for that. I've read on a diffent form that epoxy was competily safe and the way to go but you have to take eveything with a grain of salt. I find a bit unsettling at times that the glider communites have completely diffent oppuins at times. I'll watch out for that though.

The thing being that there is "safe" and "safe", and knowledge also evolves, for example, it's been held for a fact during decades that some plastic materials among the most common were neutral, we made beverage bottles out of them.. only to realize recently that they were oozing endocrine disrupters in the liquid...

My reserve regarding epoxy is that there are several kind of epoxy.
There is expoxy powder coating, which is basically what covers commercial cages, which is baked over 250C to create a hard plastic shell, which is safe.
On the other hand, there are epoxy paints, and with those we have no clue which epoxy resin is used, if it contains BPA or not, if everything is polymerised or if there remains some free chemicals in/on it once dried, if it is safe on the long time scale and not only the short one, and in which conditions, safe by contact and safe by ingestion are 2 different things.
Above all, we have no clue on how the gliders will behave, will they try to chew or lick or ingest it, will they bite on the mesh (mines bite on the bars of the cage...) and in this case, will the thin epoxy coat on the mesh resist their teeth?

Ok that had me a bit worried we were using the epoxy that commercial cages used. I also did more research and found that the epoxy that we are using is completely nontoxic once cured. None the less I will be carefull with my babies, and watch them. Thanks for all the input regardeding my cage even though I was using the safe epoxy after all#128517;.

For me, it's not just about the apoxy. I know a lot of folks use appliance paints and such to restore cages. But, it's also usually used on safe metal, not galvanized steel or toxic wood.

Those two materials have their own separate issues if the epoxy chips, gets scratched off, gets chewed off etc... Then you will have exposed unsafe materials, that is what my concern would be.

We put three coats of epoxy on the cage. Once it wil cure it will form a rock hard plastic shell around the steel mesh. It was also again what a different form urdged many to use for there cages. I have a friend who also usesd gailvenised steel for his flying squirrel cage and didn't paint it or cover it with anything. His squirrels ended up fine. It is galvenised steel that also lines the freshwater pipes leading to homes witch many people feed to their infant child in the form of instant baby bottles. The chemical makeup doesn't look as terrible as people say it is. Not to say that I will expose my gliders to the steel, but it probubly isn't as bad as people make it out to be. That's just what I believe though.

This is going to be a relatively long post, and it is not meant to be judgemental, it's just in order to explain why we err on the side of caution and why not everyone agrees on those matters.
It's in no way meant to discourage you from using your cage, it's your decision to make, and we've already established that it would be wise to monitor closely your animals' health and activity and to react quickly in case of changes occuring.


I don't know the reglementation there, but over here, galvanised steel is strictly forbidden for water pipes and for everything in contact with food, it's inox which is used. Even if water lines were made out of galvanized steel, the average tap water being usually rather basic, the zinc would not migrate into water in large quantity (it would be more of a problem were the water acidic though, which is why it is forbidden altogether here)
Zinc is necessary to the metabolism, but chronical exposure to high level of zinc induces (on the long run) copper and iron deficiency, a weaken immunity and potentially liver damages. Add to this that in gliders, contact with zinc has induced dermatitis and urinary tract infections on males.
The fact that many people do something without apparent adverse effect doesnt mean that there aren't any (best example of that is with another metal, lead : lead pipes have been used during decades with no apparent adverse effect, but the average IQ of children is in fact lower in houses with lead plumbing than in others : chronic exposure to lead = mild cases of saturnism which were not diagnosed... also, several studies have shown neurologic troubles among people who are often in proximity of firing ranges, again caused by the lead those places reject, yet if you don't search specifically for those symptoms, those people look perfectly healthy).
There are differences between acute intoxications which show symptoms immediately, and chronic intoxications for which the symptoms are a lot harder to evaluate (and once they do show, damage is already done), and generally, in people's mind, those effects are not attributed to their real causes because of the delay between 1st exposure and the beginning of the issues, and this especially if the facts go against what they want to believe.

In your case, theoretically, the gliders should not be exposed to zinc nor to the toxic wood, considering those are coated by the epoxy, but it is providing that they do not repetitively bite and break the epoxy, which might prove easy to monitor on the wood surface, but a lot more difficult to monitor on the whole surface of the mesh (I would know, I have a cage that seemed in perfect state, yet, last time I cleaned it, I found points of rust on several bars, it's small points, barely visible but it shows that their teeth finally pierced the epoxy coating allowing the steel to be exposed).
My reservation on the epoxy itself comes from my background in chemistry: epoxy resins are considered safe once cured, but that is if we considere that every single molecules of products in the mix does either react with one another or evaporate, which works in theory if every chemicals are perfectly measured, but never happens in the real world (due to approximations of measure and to the impossibility to create a perfectly even mix and so on). After it all depends on what resins are used, some are highly toxic, others are less, and in which quantity there are leftovers (and I know for a fact that even the tests used over here to measure the chemical neutrality of resins -which are among the most severe in the world- do not search for every possible toxins and potential byproducts, nor do they take into account the stability of the end product in time, hence how we ended up with bottles infusing BPA in their contents). That being said, I have no clue which kind of paints you find over there, here epoxy paints are pure resins, full BPA, and the safety sheet is clear on the fact that you should even wear a gaz mask when applying it.

I hope this helps you understand why various people can have different and even opposite views on safety matters, and if we expose ours, it's not to criticize or be judgemental, it's just so you and others can make their decision by having more facts to considere than just "someone told me that it is safe or unsafe", truth is, it might be safe, but we're not sure, nor do we know under which parameters safety will apply, hence our caution.

Very well said sjusovare.

In the states, galvanized steel pipes USED to be used in homes built prior to 1960. They are no longer the material used for plumbing because of the issues and high levels of lead. ( Sjusovare is in France, that's why I specified the States )

Galvanized iron pipes are actually steel pipes that are covered with a protective layer of zinc.

Galvanized pipes were installed in many homes that were built before the 1960s.
Over many years, zinc erodes from galvanized pipes. Corrosion can build-up on the inside walls of the pipes and creates the potential for lead to accumulate over time.

Corrosion in galvanized pipes can lead to lower water pressure and water quality issues.

Which is why old homes with galvanized pipes are updated to pvc water lines, however, if the main water line going to the house is still galvanized steal the high lead levels in the water in your house is still possible.


PVC water lines are also a safer way to build frames for gliders and what most people use when making a diy cage along with plastic hardware mesh.

Using water lines in comparison really doesn't work, humans don't live in galvanized steel houses like a glider is going to live it's galvanized cage. Lead is not going to build up since a cage is not a water line and no water will be streaming through it regularly. However, gliders do chew, and scratch which can expose the metal beneath the paint.

Normal cages are usually powder coated and even they will have exposed wire after time, after thorough cleanings, chewing, scratches or nicks, especially around hardware on the cage that moves like hinges and screws. It happens, across the board, home made cages are no exception.

The only cages that don't rust, or ever expose metal or wood frames are those made from pvc pipes and plastic hardware mesh.



On the topic of squirrels, they are not the same as sugar gliders. Squirrels don't have the same allergic and or toxic reactions to things such as wood and metals that gliders do. They don't have the same nutritional needs, eat the same foods, live the same, produce offspring the same etc, so why would their cages be made of the same materials?

Many squirrel owners use galvanized steal mesh for their enclosures because they are squirrels not gliders. Some glider owners have both squirrels and gliders, their cages for each are different, because the animals are different.

We get it, it's your decision, and they are your gliders ( not being snarky in any way shape or form ). These are merely our opinions and the reasons for them. You don't have to justify your choices to us. We all do things our own way, for our own reasons.

For example, for a long time I made my own hand sewn pouches, people freaked out, however they weren't familiar with the "thread" I used
( Sinew, which is not a single strand thread, it's woven fibers with a coating of wax and very thick ) and I never had an issue with them, I still use some of them for nail trimmings. Seems are always on the outside since they are single layer pouches...

I don't justify that choice to anyone, it's my choice to use them for my gliders, I am fully aware of the danger of exposed seems and these are only used for nail trimming not in the cage unsupervised. They are not something I would give or donate for anyone else to use, since I don't know how they will use them.

Also I would like to point out, the information we are providing is NOT only directed at you. Many people read these threads that do not post their own responses, thoughts or questions, many learn just from reading other peoples posts.

This information may help those people make their decision on what materials they want to use or don't want to use, and why. So please don't feel like we are ganging up on you, that's not at all what this is about.

Your cage may hold up just fine for a while. Our concern really is the long term health of your gliders and that you are prepared to monitor the gliders and the cage for any issues that may arise, and that you are made aware of what to look for and know what to do in case something happens. ( Which we very much hope nothing happens)

Yes I understand what you are getting at. Though I am very confident in how this cage was made. It would do no good to just throw it away. I am not trying to be careless in any way I will watch carefully for any changes in physical or mental demener, or chips in the apoxy. I take my gliders health very seriously but I do not want them to rot away in a tiny cage( though it's 2 by 2 by 4). I also do not want to spend an arm or a leg for a cage I could make perfectly in my own home. No hard feelings but I am going to try my cage and see how it works out, not to be rude or disregard anything you said. I plan to report back with my findings.

Hello again everyone.
The gliders have been in their new cage for about a week. I have been monitoring them closely and they have shown no signs of sickness. The epoxy has stood up well to the nails and teeth of the gliders. The gliders love the new cage and have been gliding around it like they should. I have a picture of the finished cage.

Very nice.
Keep us posted on how it evolves in the long run please, so that people will know what to expect if they're considering doing the same type of cage ;)

Good deal, I hope you don't have any issues, but issues CAN happen... http://www.sugarglider.com/glidergossip/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=59063