intermediate housing

[Oregonian]

I have questions about housing and can't seem to find a direct answer by googling. Frank is 4 weeks old now and has been living in a little cardboard box to simulate a nest. I know he should move into bigger housing when he opens his eyes (which should be any day now right??).

How many different sizes will he need as he grows? Like what is absolutely necessary? And what are the acceptable sizes?

We are trying to be economical and want to only purchase one cage. What is the smallest size that would be okay? There are a number of bird cages on craigslist but most of them seem too small? But then again, will he need a small one for a while because he could fall and hurt himself in a large one?

Argh! Help!

I just want to make a decision on this before he opens his eyes.

[Oregonian]

So I've been googling for what seems like hours now. Some sites say that ferret cages are okay and those are vastly more avaiable online. Googling "squirrel cage" gets you a lot of car part sites.

What do you experts think? What is the criteria for cages? Are ferret cages okay? What the largest bar width you can get? What are the absolute smallest dimensions you would consider? Remember that this is temporary housing, we are raising him to be released back into the yard.

[Scrapsmommy]

Hi there!

When Scraps was very little we had her in a shoe box. And then we had a hamster cage that she went in (this was free from a friend so i know that part doesnt help) I went to a local pet shop and they had rabbit housing that were 30" X36" X 16" And we bought two of them. originally we put them together side by side so it was like a big square and then as she got older we took them apart and put them on top of each other so it was tall 6ft! She loved this as she had room to climb. you could do something similar. they are easy to put together and they were about 50 dollars each. in the intermediate time you could put just one together and stand it up and then as the squirrel gets a bit bigger add the other one to it and then voila! nice big house. If you are releasing you might have to wrap the entire cage in smaller wire to stop outside animals from being able to paw there way in, or build a big outside cage. depends on what you plan to do in the future. Sorry its a long post, but i cant seem to type short posts!

IF you want to see pics of my cage i can post some.