Bin Cages for the Mice

Over the summer I came upon a website dedicated to building bin cages for hamsters and other small pets. I immediately wanted to build bin cages for the mice to double the room they have to run around and play at night. I took measurements and did some online searching and found these perfect 30-quart bins at Home Depot for $10/each:

After a quick trip to Home Depot I brought the bins down to the basement, did some measuring and marking, then used my dremel tool to cut openings in the front and back:

Then it was back up to the girl cave with hardware cloth and zip ties. I cut the hardware cloth to the right size recommended by the website & marked some dots for zip-tie-holes:

I drilled holes for the zip ties, then stuffed some colorful ties through and attached the wire to the bins:

Here’s what it looked like when both sides were done:

The purpose of the mesh is for ventilation. Then you take colorful duct tape and cover the sharp edges of the hardware cloth. This doubles as a cool decoration. I used rainbow [#affiliate] for the Mouse Dad and zebra print [#affiliate] for the Mouse Baby [which you’ll see further down]:

Then it was time to cut a hole in the side of each bin so I could connect them up to the cages that will sit on top of them. I traced one of the mice’s CritterTrail [#affiliate] tubes onto the side of each bin and use the dremel to cut a hole for it:

The plastic ring [yellow in the first pic] is wider the the tube, so it prevents the tube from pulling out of the bin [as long as it’s on the inside!]:

Then it’s easy to run the tubing up to the mouse cage:

I didn’t know what to put in the bins to make them interesting for the mice, so I went out in the yard and scouted some sticks:

Here are both completed bin cages on my girl cave workbench:

The next time I cleaned their cages I put leaves into the bins instead of sticks. It was NOT a hit. I think I overfilled them a little…:

At this point I’ve bought a plethora of wheels, tubes, and hammocks to go in the bins:

I also recently bought this flying saucer exercise wheel [#affiliate], which I put into the Mouse Baby’s cage last night. This morning there’s a bunch of poo on it, which means he must LOVE it and ran on it for a couple of hours last night 😊: