I made a bin cage for my hamster to attach to his cage as the cage was a bit too small:



The box is a "really useful box" that i got from staples, it cost about 15 pounds. The mesh was £6, and I got my dad to cut holes in the box using a hot knife (which apparantly took a really long time) and then he used pot rivets to attach the mesh to the box. I don't think its really that much cheaper than buying a cage if you got a second hand one, I would say if you get a syrian hamster then the savic cambridge is a good one and there are always loads on ebay usually for around £20.

I don't know anything about rats, but hamsters are more expensive than they might originally seem! When I got my syrian, Sausage this is how much I spent:

£7 hamster
about £45 on the cage
£3 food
£2 cleaning spray
£3 chew toy
£2 bedding

then later i had to get
£6 a bigger wheel
£6 another bigger wheel because the first one i got was actually not big enough!
£20 on all the stuff for the bin cage

and he now has an even bigger cage which cost £65! and i havent included all the food, bedding, medicine, toys etc that i have bought!! probably have spent around £200 pounds on him and i've only had him since february lol oops. well i didnt *have* to buy all that stuff but even if i hadnt it probably cost about £80 for the initial stuff i had to buy

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