The Swinning Family: Jumping the gun Part 2

When we arrived home, the kids and I spent about an hour holding the sweet little bunnies and the big boy. Then I made a list for the store. We needed 2 feeders, roofing, roofing screws, chain for hanging the cages, eye bolts, and cage door latches. So I headed to Lowe's hardware first while Shane headed to the garage to start cutting the doors and door holes as well as the baby saver wire. He first began to assemble the cages using the j-clips and j-clip tool. (It was now 6:30pm) Meanwhile....

I was at Lowe's and found the metal roofing material we were going to have to use which was almost $12 a sheet. The dimensions were different than the structure we built so we needed 4 sheets and Shane was still going to have to cut them down a little in the front. (ugh...more work for tonight) I then picked out the chain and eye bolts and got the roofing screws and headed home to drop that stuff off before I headed to Walmart. (The cost was $67 and It was now 7:30pm)

When I arrived home to drop of the stuff from Lowe's, Shane was using his dremel tool to file off the sharp edges of the cage sides from where he cut them. (This time-consuming task was one I hadn't taken into account and I don't think Shane had either). I left the house and headed to Walmart. At Walmart I had the huge realization that WALMART DOESN'T HAVE EVERYTHING! They didn't have the rabbit food feeders or the cage door latches. grrrrr Then I get a call from Shane. He says that the J-clip tool I bought at Tractor Supply is so cheaply made that when he clamps the J-clips closed, the tool falls apart!!!! And of course Walmart has NOTHING in the form of a J-clip tool, of course. NOW WHAT?

So here I am walking around Walmarts tool and gadget aisle (It's literally one aisle mind you) and I see nothing. And then I see cable ties and remembered that somewhere on the internet when I was researching how to build your own rabbit cage, I had seen someone who had used those to assemble their cage. (only one person and I don't even remember who cause I thought it was a dumb idea.) So what to do? I mean we were in a crisis at 8:30pm at night with 3 bunnies hanging out in cat carriers who needed their cages TONIGHT! So I grabbed 9 packs of 20 of the thickest cable ties they had. I then grabbed 2 little "dollar" feeding bowls for their food. (The cost was $23 and I arrived home around 9:45pm.)

I get home and realize I had forgotten to get wire or something to make the door latches and decided to temporarily use 2 pieces of thick "hanger style" wire I found laying around the garage. One crisis down....For the next 2 hours, I sat on the floor using cable ties to assemble the cages. I dreamnt of the boxed cages that seemed like they would be soooo easy to assemble now. We found that the cage wire wasn't exactly "one inch by two inches" or "one inch by 1/2 inch" which made it hard to line up the bottom of the cage with the sides to a perfect square. Oh well, I just used EXTRA cable ties to make sure it was secure in the corners. Until I realized they weren't extra and I was running out before I was done with the second cage. We ended up skimping on the "hinges" to the door on the babies cages temporarily til Shane could go buy more in the morning.

While I assembled, Shane was finishing the cutting of the doors and the baby saver wire for the bottom of the Does cage which he also had to use his dremel tool again to file down. (The filing was the most time consuming) Finally the cages were finished; doors and latches affixed and then all we needed to do was attach them to the structure. Sounds Simple, right?.... hmmmm, not so much. (It was now nearly 1:45am.)

We spent 2 HOURS trying to level out the cages after attaching them to the structure as well as attaching those PIECE OF GARBAGE "2 liter water bottle converter" Water feeders from Tractor Supply that leak non-stop! We finally put the bunnies in their cages around 4am. NOW THE ROOF.....NOT!!! We decided to throw a tarp over the whole thing for the night and strap it down so that it wouldn't blow away until morning. We got up at 9am to begin THE ROOFING...grrrrr (so tired).

So I am thinking we kindof jumped the gun on purchasing the rabbits yesterday. We are 3 hours in today and my husband realizes that we are short one piece of roofing. So off to Lowe's he goes again to get more cable ties and another sheet of roofing. (The cost was another $16.) I will add up all the costs in the next post. At this rate the kids will have to sell like 30 rabbits just to break even.

Picture of cages hung the next day as it was too dark to take last night without the roof.