Posted by:
kazkoMost of the popular budget or flimsy style of cages have the lift up "guillotine" type of access doors on them. These are inherently dangerous to sugar gliders. In my own past I had been feeding gliders on the threshold of the cage and the door came slamming down. Luckily nobody lost anything in that event but it managed to scare the crap out of me, so I set forth to find a better way.
Here is a motivational video if you had any questions about the idea:
For me the answer was in junking the "budget" cage that came with my sugar gliders and buying a better designed and larger cage with swing out doors. I have three of the
Exel
cages right now and they are perfect for my needs.
Some folks just cant afford the sturdier cages so the budget ones have to do. I have had it on my todo list to come up with a way to modify the lift up doors to be more safe. I finally got this done tonight.
There may be various designs for the lift-up door, but I only had this one to work with which seems to be a very common one from
ebay sellers
. There may always be a better way to accomplish this so use your noodle. I do not have access to a spot welder or anything else that could have made this better, so I just made do with the basic homebrew.
All you really need to do is turn one side into a hinge and the other into a hook. Then you simply lift up the door an inch and it will swing open and safely stay open so you can do what you need to do without fear of head trauma to your little pets or your own fingers.
I subconsciously decided to make my door open to the left for some reason.
I turned the original bottom loop down to become the bottom locking hook.
The top loop was bent out of the way and not used. You can cut this off when you are done and satisfied with your modification.
The top corner of the door gets cut and the free wire gets bent over, in and down to hook into the cage while holding the top of the door shut. You can tie the loose wire to the door with a metal twisty if you want to.
Both of the hinge side loops get squeezed together to become a tight hinge to hold the door.
I hope this helps someone. Please leave comments here or on youtube of your success or probable modifications to this concept in order to help others.
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