How to make your own Chinchilla Ledge - Making Wooden Ledges for Chinchilla Cage from scratch - Chinchillas Safe wood

Chinchilla Ledges are wooden ledges that attach to the sides of your Chinchilla's cage. These ledges are an import part of your chinchilla's cage and every chinchilla cage should have several ledges.

Chinchilla's love to jump between ledges. The ledges should be spaced far enough apart that they can safely hop between them. Be careful not to space them too far apart of your chinchilla may hurt themselves hopping from one ledge to the other. 

Besides providing exercise for your chinchilla, when they jump between the ledges, they also provide a place for your chinchilla to rest. This is especially important if your cage has a mesh bottom which can hurt your chinchilla's feet, as the wooden ledges gives them some place for them to rest their feet.

Adding ledges to your chinchilla's cage will also increase the usable space inside the cage. The height of chinchilla cages are higher than small animal cages for rabbits or guinea pigs. This is because chinchilla's enjoy climbing, so their cage should be multi-tiered instead of just one flat level. Ledges will help utilize the extra vertical space in your chinchilla's cage.

You could purchase Chinchilla Ledges from your local pet shop, or you could make your own ledges. You can make chinchilla ledges from a piece of wood and a couple things from the hardware store. Creating Chinchilla Ledges is a very easy do it yourself project that only takes a couple minutes.

You will need the following Hardware and Tools to make your own Chinchilla Ledges.

Hardware you will need:

• 1 - 6 Inch piece of 1"x5" Kiln Dried Pine
  
• 1 Hanger Bolt
• 1 Wing Nut
• 1 Fender Washer

Tools you will need:

• 2 Hex Nuts
• 2 Wrenches
  
• Socket and Socket Driver
• Drill
• Tapered Drill Bit

The size of the nuts and washers will need to match the thread size of the hanger bolt. The size of the socket and wrenches will need to match the size of the hex nuts.

The most readily available type of wood that you can use to make ledges for your Chinchilla is Kiln Dried Pine. You can purchase this type of wood from most lumber yards or home improvement stores. There are better woods for chinchilla's, like apple and other fruit woods, but your not likely to find these at your local home improvement store.

While it is not the absolute best wood for Chinchilla's, kiln dried pine is generally safe for them and you will find plenty of chinchilla products made from it. Some chinchilla's can have allergies to pine wood so keep an eye on them if you have never given them anything made for pine before.

The first thing you will need to do is drill a pair of pilot holes. Drilling out pilot holes helps keep your wood from splitting. It also makes it easier to start screwing in the hanger bolts and keeps them straight.

Measure one of the long sides of your piece of wood and mark the points that are 1/3 from each of the ends. Then use your taped drill bit and drill two straight holes in the side of the of your piece of wood.

Next, we will attach the Hanger Bolts. A hanger bolt has one side that has wood threading and another side that has machine threading. This lets you screw the hanger bolt into wood and attach a nut to the other side.

In order to screw the hanger bolt into the wood we will need to lock two nuts on the hanger bolt.This is done by threading both of the hex nuts next to each other on the hanger bolt. Then take your two wrenches and turn the bottom nut counter clockwise while turning the upper nut clockwise. This will lock the two nuts together, so they will not move.

Now you can use your socket and socket driver to screw the hanger bolt into the pilot hole. Screw it in until it reaches the point where the wood thread ends, so only the machine threaded sides is showing.

Remove the hex nuts by taking your two wrenches and turning the bottom nut clockwise, while turning the upper nut counter clockwise. This will unlock the nuts and free them, so you can remove the nuts.

Repeat this step with the second hanger bolt to insert it in the other pilot hole.

Now all you will need to do is attach the ledge to your chinchilla's cage.

To attach the ledge, just insert the hanger bolts in between the wires of your chinchilla's cage. Place the washers on the ends of the hanger bolts. Then screw the wing nuts onto the hanger bolts to secure the ledge to the cage.

You do not want your Chinchilla to hurt themselves on any sharp edges. So you should at least use some sand paper to round the edges of the ledge.

If you have a sander or router you can use those to further round the ledges. However, I usually do not put much effort into rounding the edges of the ledges, as the Chinchilla's will round it themselves by chewing on them.

Another thing I like adding to the ledges for my chinchilla's cage are Poop Guards. This just an extra piece of wood that extends above the ledge, keeping things from rolling out of the cage. This little extra piece of wood will save you plenty of time cleaning up after your chinchilla.

You can add a poop guard to your ledge by taking an second piece of wood the same length as your ledge, but not as wide. Take your two piece of wood and form an "L" shape with them and screw your hanger bolts through both pieces of wood to join them together.

These techniques can be used to create more than just ledges.

You can measure your chinchilla's cage and create custom built shelves. These shelves can run across the entire side of your cage and fit perfectly into your chinchilla's cage

You can also create hanging boxes that your Chinchilla can sit inside of.