We finished our first do-it-yourself Flush clean system this week. After months of lifting each cage to clean the litter trays, it is a relief to have this first unit done. Now, these 8 cages can be cleaned in less than 5 minutes.
Instead of the carrier style cages (that sit in a tray), these are hanging cages. They hang above a sloped sheet of vinyl flashing (which has already been dubbed the Raisin Ramp). All the waste, hay scraps, spilled water, and dust from food pellets slides down the ramp into a gutter than angles down into a bucket.
Cleaning is simply a matter of brushing the ramps and gutters and emptying the bucket onto the compost pile. If I want to get really picky about it, I can spray and wipe the ramps and flush the gutters with hot water. All of this can be done in 5 minutes. The other cages take me 5 minutes each.
The cages are hung with two pieces of conduit that run through eye bolts on each end of the cage unit. Removing them for heavy cleaning is simply a matter of pulling out the conduit and lowering the cages. Each unit is two 24 x 16 x 12 inch cages separated by a 2 inch hay rack. The hay rack doesn't need to be filled every day and serves the double purpose of keeping the rabbits out of sight of each other, reducing snarkiness. It also cuts down on the amount of hay wasted. I chose to make the units smaller so that I can handle them without needing help.
We're planning to build more of these units, but decided to wait a few weeks to see if we need to make any tweaks to the design. The angle of the slopes has to be right. Too shallow, and nothing slides down the ramps. Too steep and it launches into the middle of the floor like it came off a ski ramp.
So far, it's working exactly as it should.
When we build the next unit, I will post plans and assembly pictures.
I would love to see a step by step process of this if you feel ambitious with your next unit :)
ReplyDelete^ Sorry about the first post, I missed the line at the bottom saying you were planning on doing just that lol
ReplyDeleteYou are incredibly talented to design and build something like this. I'm awed at your ability.
ReplyDelete~Marie
Marie,
ReplyDeleteI must confess that I could not have done it without a lot of help. DH did all the heavy lifting and lumber assembly. Dennie (on the ND Network) patiently answered far too many questions about the design--which I pretty much copied from her. I can't take much of the credit.