Bandit: rabbity antics

[Azerane]

Bandit is such a one of a kind bunny. We went to bunny club last night and I had him in his cage for the first half, then I brought him out to sit on the table in front of me on his blanket. Many other people had their bunnies out and they were just sitting there, happy to be petted and just laying still. But Bandit was fidgeting here and there, trying to get to the other bunnies, jumping on me, jumping back on the table, digging at his blanket, biting his hay in half but not eating it. It was really funny, until I realised that it was because he had to pee, lol. Fortunately he peed on the blanket and not on me and I put some litter on top to help soak it up. Even so, he was still fidgety after that Such a little rascal.

I finally signed the lease today. I only had my deposit on the new place until now. So now it's extra official. It's crazy because I'm never usually very busy, but these next two weeks I have so much on, as well as moving house. Not quite sure how I'm going to cope, lol.

 

[Azerane]

I blame this forum... everyone said I should start piecing Bandit's cage together now, but I wasn't because I still have tonnes to pack and organise, and I'll have plenty of time to put it together on the first day while I wait for the electrician people etc to come buy and connect things. But I let you guys get to me and thought I would just put one section together... five sections later and I've got probably half of it done, lol. I only need to piece together the door, the roof, the back and the second level. It's really quick to do, and fun

I've only made one mistake, which was having one of the pieces facing the wrong way (since they're all welded on one side, I wanted the weld joins facing out).

 

[Azerane]

Tomorrow is the day I get to start putting Bandit's new cage together! I'm really excited about it. I bought the vinyl, glue, screws and a couple of tools that I needed for it today. So I'm all ready to go, apart from the plywood that I'll be getting once the frame is constructed and can be measured. Except I also forgot to get shelf supports... which means yet another trip to the hardware store today since I'll need those before I hang the shelf to know how high to hang it.

Bandit also did something adorable today (well, he's always adorable but this especially). He picked up his wooden barrel roller toy, hopped over to his cardboard box, went inside, put the toy down and hopped back out! I know it doesn't sound like anything special, but watching a bunny carry something is so stinking cute, and the fact that he was playing with his toys makes me happy

 

[JBun]

That is cute! It sounds like he wanted to put it in his 'special place' or something

 

[LilSpud]

Bandit has beautiful colouring! His colours remind me of a siamese cat, but definitely looks better on him! Haha

 

[Azerane]

Hey guys, I have some cage building pics for you all It's been a really long day, getting the keys for the new place, moving a few boxes, I vacuumed all the floors (there's a lot) and put together what you see of Bandit's condo (more in the next post).

If I'm not making sense, it's because I'm completely exhausted, so just bear with me.

1. The front wall put together, I had it pre-made in three pieces. The bits of paper wrapped around the bars are notes to tell me which piece was which and where the bottom was.
2. The front wall with the two side walls joined on at each end. You can see the colour of the vinyl I'm using at the bottom there.
3. Stood up in the rough position of where it will end up.
4. The back wall laid out, no cable ties yet, I was just making sure the pieces worked out well since some of them have slight curves etc.
5. The back wall connected (this step would have been much easier with two people)
6. Adding the shelf, I did this in stages. I connected two grids together before adding the pair in, as opposed to adding one by one.
7. Testing out the support bar under the shelf progress. Found an almost perfect size bit of pine which is really strong, so I was able to run it along the length of the cage as opposed to having two bits of pine sticking out the front which I really didn't want.

 

[Azerane]

1. The shelf completed
2. Close-up of where Bandit will hopefully be jumping up (still a few cable ties missing)
3. Front view
4. Door added
5. Testing out the sizing of the plywood I had cut at the hardware store. Perfect fit top and bottom
6. The gap cut for Bandit to jump through

I have also since cut and glued the vinyl to the floor and shelf, but didn't take pictures of that yet. For those wondering about a step for Bandit to the second level, I'm going to try using his blue box there that he loves, and if it doesn't work out, I'll add a shelf with grids.

As for the general design, five long for hopping room (he's a decent size after all). I didn't want the step on the end because it restricts that room, which is why I have it against the back so there's still five grids of running space. Two high is for the binkies and stretching, the 1 grid high top level will just provide enough room for him to do his regular hopping and flop out etc

 

[whiskylollipop]

What a project! I like how you also got a plywood base for the bottom floor. No ruining the floorboards, Bandit.

 

[grandmom2muffin]

Wow. The new cage looks great!! I would love to make one for my grandbun. How do I search for the grids? What exactly are they called.

 

[Azerane]

Wow. The new cage looks great!! I would love to make one for my grandbun. How do I search for the grids? What exactly are they called.

Thanks, it's coming along nicely. It depends where you live, but usually if you search for wire storage cube they come up on websites. The different brands possibly have different names for them.

After another day of construction (boy is this taking way longer than I expected) the cage is almost (nope, not done yet) complete! I'll spread this over two posts so that there's not as much scrolling down from the descriptions to the individual photos. A bit of frustration today since the vinyl didn't stick properly which caused issues but I came up with a solution that has worked out perfectly.

1. The second floor coated in vinyl
2. The base with the pine edging (with vinyl on the sides) attached.
3. A close up of the corner and the gaps (I left a gap from the vinyl to the top edge in case Bandit managed to chew at it a bit, he wouldn't be eating vinyl, just the pine.
4. Clear sealant to cover the gaps so no accidental pees or water spillage can get through and damaged the pine.
5. The second floor with rough non-slip vinyl around the hole and some plastic edging attached. The edging is awesome, it will stop Bandit picking the vinyl up at the edges, and it holds the vinyl on snug after the glue didn't quite do the trick. Loved this solution.

 

[Azerane]

If you're catching up on today's cage progress, there's a previous post from today on the page before this one.

1. A close-up of the corner with the non-slip vinyl and the plastic edging to keep it safe from bunny teeth The non-slip stuff stuck on really tough so I'm thinking Bandit might not have much luck with pulling it.
2. Fitting the cage inside the base (hooray, it fits perfectly!)
3. Fitting in the second level and starting to cut cable ties (you forget how many there are until you have to cut off hundreds of them) The shelf support has also been cut to size and cable-tied on.
4. The nearly-finished product. I'm so proud of how it's turning out. It's looking really good.

All that's left to do is build a lid, including 3 panel door along the front of the roof and I have to drill holes along the pine so that I can cable tie the cage to the base. Drilling the holes will be a little bit of a pain now that everything's in place, but I wanted to make sure I lined the holes up properly. But overall, I'm in love with this cage. Bandit had better like it, lol.

 

[bunnylovin1093]

Awesome cage! Wish Bambi could live inside "Sigh"

 

[JBun]

Looking nice! I'm sure Bandit will love it!

I've been building one too, as a temp bonding cage until I get my bunny room remodel done. It's amazing how you start out thinking it won't take long to put together... then several hours later you're still at it I'm always looking for new ideas. I'm liking those non slip tiles. What are they exactly? And what is that plastic edging?

One thing that I discovered, that may or may not be helpful to you, is that I found that the cage also needed some vertical support. So I attached 1x2's at several points around the cage, particularly around the doorway. Seemed to keep things from sagging so much.

 

[Azerane]

I will respond better and post the rest of the build photos once my internet is set up but for now I just wanted to say that bandit is liking his condo. It took him about 5 hours to jump to the second level, but I'm not sure he can get down. I've brought him back down a couple of times and he keeps going back up, which is good. So I've been trying to leave it longer between bringing him down again to see whether he'll try jumping. I'm just worried about it happening overnight while I'm sleeping and something going wrong. I guess if he pees up there I'll know for sure and I might have to alter the step.

 

[Azerane]

Looking nice! I'm sure Bandit will love it!

I've been building one too, as a temp bonding cage until I get my bunny room remodel done. It's amazing how you start out thinking it won't take long to put together... then several hours later you're still at it I'm always looking for new ideas. I'm liking those non slip tiles. What are they exactly? And what is that plastic edging?

One thing that I discovered, that may or may not be helpful to you, is that I found that the cage also needed some vertical support. So I attached 1x2's at several points around the cage, particularly around the doorway. Seemed to keep things from sagging so much.

The non-slip tiles are a self-adhesive rough vinyl that I found in the hardware store in the same section as rubber feet and castors for chairs etc. It's basically a non-slip stick-on strip for the edge of steps etc, it was pretty wide so I cut it in half. The plastic stripping was in the builders section, I'm not sure if it's used for plasterboard but it was kept near there and came in a few different lengths. It's just a "U" shaped stripe with one side of the u a little longer than the other and it slips on over the edge. I was just lucky that it was the right width to fit on snugly. Like this: http://www.mat-plasty.com/images/photogallery/image/C06.jpg

I only had one issue with sagging (apart from the roof where the door is but that's to be expected) and it was on the left panel above the front door. I was able to fix it by attaching it diagonally to a piece on the roof that wasn't part of the roof door. If that makes sense, if not I can illustrate it.

So Bandit's cage is now 99.9% finished. I only say that because I forgot to attach the corflute, which I'm going to add on the outside behind his litter tray to stop hay slipping through.

So now it's time for more pictures

1. Attaching the roof, here you can see all the solid parts of the roof, the three grid long gap at the front is for an access door.
2. Cable tie attaching the cage to the base. Not a very exciting picture I know I found that I didn't have to attach it in the corners, only next to the door opening and along the sides which resulted in the corners being held in naturally.
3. The finished product in position (I have it sitting on interlocking foam mats so that it doesn't damage the floor)
4. Another angle, doors open
5. Freshly installed bunny. This was right after we finished moving the furniture in and were having lunch, hence the small temporary litter tray which was in his travel-size cage. The blue box with carpet on top for traction was the original idea for the step to the next level
6. Bandit on the top level, he could get up, but he couldn't seem to get down, so I made a few alterations (seen in next post).

 

[Azerane]

1. Squishy bunny face!! (This is a very important step in the condo making process!)
2. Bandit enjoying his penthouse suite. You can see that I added steps in, since he could jump up, but wasn't going down and I was worried about him hurting himself if he tried. So I added two steps, covered one in a carpet square, and the other in a folded fleece.
3. The carpet wasn't compatible with Bandit So a fleece was added to the top step, I would like to have a secured covering on the steps, but haven't decided what to use yet. You can see how I supported the steps here, but after setting it up this way, I realised I could remove one of the supportive grids and still support both and in the process give Bandit two directions for getting onto the bottom step.
4. The altered step design, it seems to have helped him with jumping down since he doesn't have to jump straight down to go under the supporting grid, he can jump out more. He's also jumped once from that gap in the top step which scared the life out of me, but he was fine. Just in a hurry to get to his fresh hay.
5. Part of Bandit's play area, this was his first official time outside the cage, and he was running around for about 2 hours. He took to the floorboards like a champ, and investigated every single nook and cranny very thoroughly. I even got a few binkies He completely ignored me, until I answered a phone call from my dad and then he was following me around and reaching up at me and wanting pets etc, lol.
6. Lounging around after some exhausting time exploring!

 

[pani]

WOW! The condo looks amazing! Bandit is one lucky bunny.

 

[Azerane]

Thanks, I'm so pleased with how it's turned out. Bandit is a pro at the steps now too, he often only uses the bottom one on the way up, but always uses both on the way back down.

He's such a champ, out for 2 hours both yesterday and today and not a single stray poop. I was expecting a poop fest. Yesterday he was reluctant to step back inside his cage, he would go over to it and peer inside from the doorway, then hop away. I guess he was worried that I would lock him in. But today he was in and out of his cage a bit, using his tray etc. So proud of him.

On an unrelated note, as I was typing all this a white-tailed spider emerged along the wall beside me. I was hoping I'd seen the last of them at the old place, but it's possible I've brought them with in the couch, not really something I want to think about to be perfectly honest. I am terrified of huntsman spiders, but white-tails are another beast entirely, more of a creepy beast than an "omg, that thing is huge and hairy". Both are terrifying in their own way.

 

[Ana_The_Dreamer]

Wow!! That condo is amazing! I've been following your progress on it and I am very impressed with your work! Bandit is such an adorable bunny. I adore his little nose! (I have a thing for bunny noses, hehe.)
I had to google those spiders you were talking about (The only spiders I have in my area are the common house spider, wolf spider, and maybe a jumping spider here and there.) and ooooooh goodnessssss. That huntsman spider looks absolutely terrifying! If one of those crawled into my house I'd probably grab all my animals, take them outside, and sit in the front yard until someone could come and kill it for me. White-tails don't look like fun either. How creepy.
I'm not a scaredy-cat with spider and such, but oh my. Australia sure has its share of crawlies, huh?

 

[Azerane]

Thank you so much! I am so pleased with how it turned out in the end. It was a lot of work, but certainly well worth it for the result. I could have done it a lot more cheaply, but I think the extra money was worth it too.

I agree that bunny noses are freaking adorable, I love scratching Bandit's, though he always tries to lick me when I do.

I'm not quite so terrified of huntsman spiders as I have done some possum nest box work that required me to put my hand in nest boxes right next to the spiders! It's more when they're indoors. The white-tails are a concern mostly because they can give a very nasty bite, and that not only concerns me, but Bandit too. I used to be absolutely terrified of spiders and couldn't deal with them at all myself, but I have had to overcome that living on my own. I like spiders, I think they're fascinating creatures, just only when they're on the outside of my house

I'm in shock right now, because Bandit had been out for an hour and a half, and 40 minutes ago, he hopped up into the top level of his condo and settled down for a rest, cage door open! It's a good thing, because it means it's his safe space, but I was just so surprised that he was giving up his freedom time willingly. He'll probably be back out again soon I should think.

Here's some photos of Bandit helping me fold and stack the packing paper so that it fits easily in the recycling bin.