Making a Ferret Safe Computer Room!

[Deleted]

So if you're like me, you probably have a room with a computer or two.... or three...

You probably like to spend a lot of your time in this room, doing things on your computer.  Maybe you're a Gamer.  Maybe you're a Photoshopper.  Maybe you just enjoy the internet, Facebook, or just spend a lot of online time with friends in social chat rooms, etc...

Now here is your problem. 

You love your computers, but you also love your Ferrets!!

You want your Ferrets spending time in the room with you, or more specifically, your Ferrets love you and they WANT to spend time with YOU!

For me, I do play games, but I also watch my favorite TV shows through online streaming.  Its a heck of a lot cheaper then paying for Cable TV service if your internet connection can handle it!

I also work for a small business IT company who does a lot of business with a number of local small businesses, lawfirms and medical offices throughout the Atlanta area.  We sell a lot of custom designed PC's and offer a lot of professional networking solutions as well as online-internet based DVR Security Surveillance systems...

So, if you're like me, you probably have a nice computer room set up with a couple nice, custom built PC's.

For me, I have a large corner desk measuring 6 feet by 6 feet... and on this desk is a big 2 level shelf with books, dvd's and games.  Also on the desk are 2 key boards, and 2 mice, and 2 monitors; each pair serving one of two custom built PC's that I built myself.  Along with these two computers is a hefty Battery Backup and a nice power strip; a router, cable modem, external LAN based backup Hard Drive unit, and various computer speakers, and some clutter...

Naturally, all this also involves a LOT of wiring...

So if you're like me, you have all your wires shoved down behind your desk and the majority of those wires would be running down over the floor along the wall behind your desk.  Just look at all those wires you have down there!





Now here's the problem.

Your ferrets, like all ferrets, are insatiably curious and just loooove to get into everything, crawl through everything, and more so they love nothing more then to crawl around under and behind your furniture!

For me, our two little brats love to run back and forth along the walls behind my desk.  They especially love to hide in the back corner behind the central support under the desk, near the large subwoofer speaker in the above picture.

Now resolving this problem was rather simple, and only cost me all of $20 at Home Depot, but it also required a little bit of time and planning.

So for starters, I bought a couple packs of Screw Hooks.
www.homedepot.com/p/3-lb-x-5-8-in-Brass-Plated-Cup-Hooks-100-Pack-15682/202183439#.Uje60uyLNyV


$3, and all of 10 minutes worth of work with my power drill and some sawdust goggles... 10 minutes laying on my back under my desk drilling a number of holes into the underside of the desktop, and screwing the Hooks into place.  Then some zip ties from my tool box... and viola... wires are no longer on the floor and out of reach from curious Ferrets!




Now you have a nice clean, Ferret Safe floor under and behind your Desk!






But now comes the second part of this little project!

What to do about the big computer sitting on the floor next to the desk, and the heft battery backup next to it, and the power strip behind it... and alllll the wires that are still running down from the hooks, to all those plugs?









Well for a temporary fix, I ran a 4" diameter cardboard tube down under the wires and the two brats couldn't stop running back and forth through it without the wires in their way.  But the problem remains, you still have a nest of wires down there and most of them are the A/C wires plugged into A/C plugs!








Yes, that is a MagikJack Plus plugged into the Battery Back Up as well...

...and Malcolm loves nothing more then to crawl in between the big computer and the battery unit and try to stand on top of our MagikJack and try to chew on the cables there!  Fortunately I'm always sitting right there at my desk watching him!  But this is still a problem, and we don't want our lovable little brats chewing on these wires do we?

So the resolution to this part of the problem took a little planning.

Originally, I was going to build a small table to set next to my desk in that area, and just place the big computer, battery and power strip and all the cables up onto that table... and problem solved, right?

Not precisely...

The combined weight of all of these things is a whooping 100lbs!!  The Computer alone weights nearly 70lbs by itself!   Its a large Full Tower, all metal Case with a hefty power supply, several hard drives, and several other weighty internal components.  Add to that, the Battery Backup unit weighs around 25lbs and then the power strip and all the assorted cables probably add another 5lbs...

Not only that, but all these cables and power cords are running your precious Home Network... so you can enjoy sitting in another room with your wireless Laptop, like my girlfriend sometimes does with her laptop... Or, if you're like me you have a Tablet PC with a wireless connection to your Router, which is bridged into a second wireless router you have in another room of your house or apartment which is in turn, hooked into a network/LAN capable Television or Stereo system... Mine is connected to my Yamaha Stereo which I can control from my Tablet PC through my Wireless network! 

So, this is a complicated and complex wiring mess we have with all these power cords, network cords, and phone cords all running into this battery and power strip on the floor next to the desk... and not something that can be easily disconnected.

So what now?

Well, for me, it took a little creative thinking.

You remember seeing the small file cabinet under the right side of my desk in the above pictures?   That is a seperate piece of furniture and not a part of the desk itself. 

Now comes Home Depot again!

I picked out a 1/2in x 24x48in sheet of project ply and had them custom cut the sheet to my specified measurements, and it all cost me less then $12 after check out!

Then I moved the file cabinet to the other side of the desk and placed the newly cut sheet of plywood on top of that and viola, I now have a perfect computer table next to my desk, and a completely Ferret Safe environment down there!











Not only did this provide a nice Ferret Safe area, but it also increased the Ferrets enjoyment of the area and I have since discovered that the two of them have now commandeered the back corner space behind my desk and made it into their newest hiding spot!





What about the rest of the Computer Room?

Well here we have my girlfriends computer desk, underwhich she keeps their WARE Ferret Furniture inwhich is woven one of their favorite running tubes, as well as a pair of litter boxes... as well as her dinner sitting in front of her keyboard! lol

This is all sitting just to the left of my desk, in fact her chair is right next to the new "table" we put together above...




You will probably notice that there are still some cables and wires hanging low, particularly near the wall outlets.  Fortunately our Ferrets have ignored these, thoough it is still on the list of future Ferret Proofing... for now though our two little brats are too excited about the rest of the floor space around the room...








The aluminum tubing cost all of $12 at Walmart for a 10' section which we cut in half.

Another cheap amusement or them are dozens of cut up toilet paper tubes!  We shove those into their travel case and they love to get in there, and thrash about and throw the tube pieces all over the place!  But what they love even more are those dark tube interiors, and chasing each other through them!

As for the two brats themselves?

They were watching me move the file cabinet and setting up the custom cut board, and moving the computer, battery and all the wires and power strip up and out of their reach.  More so, they saw me opening up some more unobstructed floor space for them to run around and explore...

So their verdict of this project?


LET US OUT RIGHT NOW!!!!!




So there we have it!

A nice Ferret safe Computer Room environment!

[Sherry]

s1112.photobucket.com/albums/k488/sinnead2/?action=view¤t=photo-6.jpg&evt=user_media_share
Our guys quit bother the cables with this tubing in place.

[Deleted]

Additional tubing and tunnels is one of our next steps!

We also would like to get some sort of cat tree, something Serenity can climb on cause boy is she a climber! She is at the moment annoying the heck out of my girlfriend trying to climb up her legs!

I've also been looking a lot of pictures of other Ferret rooms, both here on this Forum as well as other ferret websites; and I must say I have been quite inspired!

Unfortunately, we can't do much with drilling holes into our walls, as we're renting an apartment and so can't damage the walls too much other then a few holes for mounting some pictures out in our living room... So I'm looking into doing as much as I can with giving them as much floor space to play on, as I can... and making this computer room safe for them gives them more then twice the floor space they had in our original bathroom playpen that I showed in my original introduction thread here -- holisticferret60.proboards.com/thread/12157/meet-serenity-definitely-serene-lol

My eventual plan is to allow them to roam freely between this computer room, the bedroom and the bathroom they originally had.

[bitbyter]

The one reason I don't let the ferrets into the computer room / office is the rolling chair. I am terrified that they'd go to sleep behind the chair or lay down under it and I'd forget they are in the room. Roll back and run over a tail or worse.

[Sherry]

One of the ferrets in our local rescue is paralyzed because of just that. Except her owner knew she was there.

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2013 7:56:47 GMT -5 bitbyter said:

The one reason I don't let the ferrets into the computer room / office is the rolling chair. I am terrified that they'd go to sleep behind the chair or lay down under it and I'd forget they are in the room. Roll back and run over a tail or worse.

Thats why Malcolm wears a bell when he's out.

We know where he is at all times.

Serenity on the other hand won't wear one, she is too small and her neck not thick enough and so she too easily manages to squirm herself out of every collar or harness we've tried.  However she makes enough noise with her toys, and she ALWAYS lets us know when she is under our chairs cause she goes straight for our legs to climb them!

I'm starting to realize, she is one who was not meant to be caged and is definitely intended to be a free roamer.

As for our chairs, we only have one that is wheeled, and thats mine.  If they're out of the cage playing, then thats my time to take a break from what I'm doing and watch them.  I've learned it only takes a matter of seconds for them to get themselves into trouble.  In the pictures above, the large full tower Computer... its case has a fine mesh front grill, in fact the grill is actually 8 individual mesh slot covers, each covering a drive bay as the entire front can be loaded with drives if I wanted too, or ever needed too...

But the mesh, has tiny holes that she can stick her claws into and climb. 

One day, about 2 months ago, while watching something streaming on the Net, Serenity tried to climb up to the top of that computer, and got one of her claws stuck in the mesh near the top and could not dislodge it.  Next thing I know she was thrashing about frantically, and scared the living heck out of me.  I reached down to grab a hold of her and her claw popped free at that moment, and it was only slightly damaged near the sharp tip as a result so I took their nail clippers and clipped the tip off and she was just fine after that... leaped from my lap and went wardancing across the floor chasing after Malcolm!

But only took a matter of seconds though, a matter of a few seconds combined with an insatiably curious ferrets irresistible desire to climb things; and we could have had a much more serious crisis on our hands.

That was the point when I realized I really needed to do something about moving that computer.

As for my chair...

Truth is, I really need to replace it...

Its killing my back! lol

[Deleted]

This was actually helpful thanks, this is my next step to ferret proofing my bedroom. We currently use a spare room for my little guy and my dog to play in together but that room will soon be occupied, thus the cords must be hid in my room to allow for safe play time, Can't wait!

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2013 12:25:50 GMT -5 @nyarlathotep said:

Sept 17, 2013 7:56:47 GMT -5 bitbyter said:

The one reason I don't let the ferrets into the computer room / office is the rolling chair. I am terrified that they'd go to sleep behind the chair or lay down under it and I'd forget they are in the room. Roll back and run over a tail or worse.

Thats why Malcolm wears a bell when he's out.

We know where he is at all times.

Serenity on the other hand won't wear one, she is too small and her neck not thick enough and so she too easily manages to squirm herself out of every collar or harness we've tried.  However she makes enough noise with her toys, and she ALWAYS lets us know when she is under our chairs cause she goes straight for our legs to climb them!

Have you tried poking extra holes in a small kitten collar? I had to do that with Evanna (she's really frackin small) and its worked pretty well so far.

[Deleted]

We just did the same thing to our PC room, mostly because they really like running around in there (lots of hiding places). Put hooks in the wall for travelling network cords and the tower went onto the bottom shelf of the board game cupboard - safely out of reach. The wiring was a lot of work, but it's so worth it knowing they can be free to roam in it and we can play video games at some point when they aren't distracting me with their craziness

[Deleted]

Jul 7, 2014 0:42:43 GMT -5 @muchasbellas said:

Sept 17, 2013 12:25:50 GMT -5 @nyarlathotep said:

Thats why Malcolm wears a bell when he's out.

We know where he is at all times.

Serenity on the other hand won't wear one, she is too small and her neck not thick enough and so she too easily manages to squirm herself out of every collar or harness we've tried.  However she makes enough noise with her toys, and she ALWAYS lets us know when she is under our chairs cause she goes straight for our legs to climb them!

Have you tried poking extra holes in a small kitten collar? I had to do that with Evanna (she's really frackin small) and its worked pretty well so far.

Oh we finally found a small bell collar that works with Serenity, and she has gotten used to wearing it so she doesn't try to get it off anymore.  In fact she takes pride in making that bell jingle when shes right near us so we know she's there wanting our attention!

[Deleted]

Jul 9, 2014 7:58:55 GMT -5 @fawkes said:

We just did the same thing to our PC room, mostly because they really like running around in there (lots of hiding places). Put hooks in the wall for travelling network cords and the tower went onto the bottom shelf of the board game cupboard - safely out of reach. The wiring was a lot of work, but it's so worth it knowing they can be free to roam in it and we can play video games at some point when they aren't distracting me with their craziness

Yeah and thats the other thing! LOL

Serenity is obsessed with climbing things, so when we're in the room working on our computers, suddenly the little claws are scrambling up our legs, onto our laps and trying to get up onto our desk!   She can't get up to my chair easily cause its a nice plushy leather desk chair so she waits till I am sitting there before she climbs up to my lap.

With my girlfriend though, it is even more annoying, she sits in a desk chair that is cloth and Serenity will ALWAYS sink her claws into that cloth and scramble up the chair from the back side, climbing up and over the chair back and then up onto her shoulders while she is sitting there doing stuff on her computer.   Then from there, Serenity will do everything she can to get from those shoulders, down onto the desk!

My girlfriend gets annoyed, and puts her back down on the floor, and within minutes shes scrambling her way back up again!