Today we are reviewing:
Storage grids from Mesh Cube / Grendle Enterprises.
This week the girly Squidgypigs have all had housing upgrades. We have ditched both their hodge-podge of cages, cage extensions, homemade pens and wood shavings for a rather large c&c storage grid house with warm snuggly fleece bedding.
What are they?:
- Wire storage grids designed for compartmentalised storage (would make a good shoe rack… If I had lots of shoes, I don’t. I have lots of Guinea Pigs…).
- Available in black or white.
- 36.5cm square.
- Joined together with round, plastic, multidirectional connectors.
Squidgypigs-c&c connector - C&C stands for cubes (the grids) and corroplast (the usual corrugated plastic lining) we have ditched the idea of corroplast due to the cost of over 25 foot of it (we have instead lined the cage with a £2 tarpaulin from The Range and a number of cat litter box ‘hay kitchens’.
Squidgypigs – Zelah in a hay kitchen
Where can you buy them?:
- Grendle Enterprises website.
- Their eBay store.
Price:
- We chose £45 for 26 grids but there are several options.
image from http://www.meshcube.co.uk
Review:
- The best bit about these grids is obviously that you can make whatever shape and size cage you want/need to. Have an odd shaped room? Need to go up rather than out? You can do whatever you want.
- I really liked the fact that piggies that have to be kept separate for either personality or health reasons (hello Blondie!) could be kept in a division of the cage but still feel part of a herd and able to communicate through the grids.
- The size of the grids (36.5cm) is good and we haven’t had any attempts at escape. This obviously keeps everyone in their correct place and also ensures that when there isn’t the threat of other pets around there is no need for a lid over this cage, meaning far more human/pig interaction.
- I would however be hesitant to house an adult, full size unneutered boar next to sows, just incase he managed to scale the wall. Ned however is particularly large so this may not be a concern for smaller boys.
- The connectors are easy to use: just push the grids in and they click into place quite easily. I have heard of people saying they had trouble with their cages (from other distributors) falling apart but once connected ours seems very sturdy!
- We nearly had enough connectors and I’m pretty sure that if we were making a standard 2×4 grid house with a 2×1 loft we would have had enough. However on our mega cage we ran out and had to continue with plastic cable ties.
- I cannot imagine a circumstance where these grids would get particularly dirty but they would be easy to wipe clean if needed.
- We had enough grids left from the perimeter of their cage that we could have a small balcony section but decided this was likely a bad idea considering a couple of our Squidgypigs have vision loss.
- We did however decide to use one horizontal grid as a frame for some felt fringing that the pigs love to hide behind.
- Update:5/8/2017: We have also made a small run in our garden out of the grids. As it has no lid it wouldn’t be suitable for unsupervised use but is perfect for giving small groups of piggies some outdoor time whilst we are sat watching.
Conclusion:
- These grids are easy to use, and very versatile, best of all the Squidgypigs adored the extra space the grids provided. I cannot see us returning to traditional caging.
Please note: Following our review the lovely folk at Grendel sent us the missing connectors so they get top points for customer service!
Squidgypigs 
We purchased (and spent $170!) a c&c cage which has given us nothing but trouble. We have it up off the floor on crates for support and to double as storage for all things piggy. We are terribly disappointed as if you so much as lean on the cage even a tiny but the thing is falling apart. The round plastic connectors have worn or “stripped” out and they regularly fall off all the time. Zip ties were put on, even in “x” formations and still came loose when cleaning piggies. The thing is always falling apart or coming loose and I would not recommend them at all. We plan to build our own with sturdy wood and these problems will be gone I hope. Maybe others have had a good experience but we feel we have wasted our money 😦
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Having maintained the c&c for a while now I’m surprised your story isn’t more frequently heard actually. We double enforce all grids with both the official connectors and cable ties and still have accidents when one of us lean on it. Our cage works for us because it is a large space that takes up most of a room and if one of the girls did escape there is a limit to what damage they could cause. Your custom made wooden cage sounds great, best of luck for the future.
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