Making good use of my 22 shopping carts has begun!
As many of you may already know, @papa-pepper recently became the proud owner of 22 broken shopping carts. My thoughts were that they make some great rabbit cages, and it turns out that I was right!
This is just my recently attempt and the first time I have ever done this. All I had was an idea in my head, but it worked out really well.
HOW TO TURN A SHOPPING CART INTO A RABBIT CAGE
Choose a shopping cart from your available supply.
Locate a reciprocating saw.
Cut the metal where the child seat attaches to the cart.
By cutting through one side of the loop, the whole side should detach.
Remove both pieces.
Leave the swinging rear door attached.
Cut the bolts securing the basket of the cart to the frame.
Remove the frame and save to use with some other fun project.
Keep the basket and the bottom from the child seat.
Locate a drill, wire, tin snips, pliers, and scrap metal roofing.
Use the pliers to bend one end of the bottom of the child seat out.
Make sure it is basically straight.
Hook the child seat bottom around the edge of the leg openings on the basket.
Bend the end back over to secure it.
Use wire to lock the edges in place and remove the plastic flap.
Make sure your metal roofing scrap is big enough to overhang the top of the basket.
Center the roofing on the basket and mark where the meet.
Drill a hole on each side of where they meet.
Bend small sections of wire into “U” shapes and attach the roof to the top of the basket.
Twist them tight on top to secure the roof.
Attach a longer “U” of wire to the swing door to use as a water bottle holder.
On the end opposite of the swinging door, measure how wide your rabbit feeder is.
Mark which bars to cut and how high to cut them so the feeder will fit snugly.
Snip the bars at the appropriate height with the tin snips.
Bend down the bottom sides of the bars you snipped to create an opening.
Insert the feeder.
Secure the feeder.
Use a carabiner to lock the bottom of the swinging door.
Your rabbit cage is complete!
Additional Options
Since I will be using mine as “rabbit tractors” where they can be moved daily and have access to fresh green grass through the bottom, I’ll leave the bottom of the basket as is. If I was going to raise the cage and suspend it, I would add some hardware cloth to the bottom. Just make sure that the hardware cloth is large enough to allow the rabbit manure to fall through.
The swinging part of the cart will be the door, and it is large enough to allow a small shelter or nesting box to be inserted. This will come in handy for rabbits that will be housed outdoors in their cage, and also during when breeding/birthing rabbits.
VIDEO OF FINISHED PROJECT!!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-shopping-cart-rabbit-cage
Until next time…
STEEMIT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!
