American Ninja Warriors are known for doing what is seemingly impossible. They bounce effortlessly from wall to wall, leap into the air to land on tiny ledges, and run across angled platforms and spinning barrels. While their strength and agility are impressive, they can’t hold a candle to chinchillas.
“They’re basically parkour ninjas,” said Josh Paulson, owner of Quality Cage Crafters in Boise, Idaho. “I call them furricanes because their spine and tail are built so that if they hit a surface, they can instantly propel themselves off it. They also do what we call popcorning, where they jump four feet in the air from a perfectly still position.”
There’s a reason Josh knows a thing or two about chinchillas. As the owner of Quality Cage Crafters, he’s responsible for manufacturing animal cages for small and exotic pets including rabbits, prairie dogs, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, monkeys, armadillos and parkour ninjas.
“Each animal has unique environmental safety concerns,” said Josh. “Safety is always the number one focus over convenience for the pet owner. If a pet owner asks us to change the product in a way that will reduce the safety of an animal, we won’t do it.”
While Quality Cage manufactures cages for nearly 14 different animals, most of their sales come from chinchilla owners. A safe, stimulating chinchilla cage is made of metal and can include features like wood for gnawing, a nest box, Idaho-mined pumice dust, and a Quality Cage top seller: the Chin Spin Chinchilla Exercise Wheel.
“We keep a lot of things in mind when it comes to chinchillas,” said Josh. “Our cages are never plastic. Plastic can impact a chinchilla’s digestive system and they’ll die fairly quickly if they eat it. Also, their teeth are continuously growing so we make sure there’s wood, pumice stones or treats for them to gnaw on to grind them down. Our cages are a permanent solution.”
Although they’re endangered in the wild, chinchillas can live nearly 20 years in captivity, so dialing-in their living environment is vital. For the employees at Quality Cage Crafters, who are mostly engineers by trade, consistently improving small animal cages is an exciting venture.
“When I tell people we make chinchilla cages, they think we do it in a garage,” said Josh. “But we have a full 6,000 sq. ft. warehouse. It’s sheet metal, it’s woodworking, it’s welding, it’s powder coating and it’s hard, dirty manufacturing. We even manufacture our own cardboard boxes to perfectly fit the cages and reduce shipping costs for our customers.”
Custom cardboard boxes aren’t the only way Quality Cage goes the extra mile for their customers. Josh also keeps an eye on social media and message boards, looking for opportunities to say thank you.
“We don’t do marketing or ads,” he said. “If we see customers saying good things about us in Facebook groups, we send them a gift. Instead of spending money on Facebook or Instagram, we spend it on our customers. Without them we wouldn’t be here.”
With hundreds of shipments each month to customers across the globe, Quality Cage Crafters remains dedicated to creating happier, healthier pets, and there’s nothing quite like a happy chinchilla.
To learn more about Quality Cage Crafters, visit https://qualitycage.com.