Fire Hose Triangle Enrichment Toy

Description

This is a fun and simple toy that can be used to enrich a variety of animals. The durability of the fire hose and the rigidness of the plywood means is can be used as a swing for a primate but also as a chew toy for a large carnivore. All you really need for this project is some fire hose and a small amount of scrap plywood. This fire hose triangle also opens up a lot of doors as far as what you can do with shaping fire hose as this project could very easily be done using PVC pipe instead of plywood allowing you to shape it very easily.

 

Building Materials

  • Plywood (can probably use scrap pieces)
  • Firehose
  • Screws
  • One Bolt
  • One large Eye bolt
  • Drill and drill bits (including one large enough for the eye bolt)
  • Sharp Knife

Building Instructions

  1. The first thing you need to do to build this fire hose triangle is decide how large you want this toy to be, the one in the picture in this case is a 2 foot by 2 foot by 2 foot triangle. This size allows for larger animals to play with it while still being large enough that the animal won’t get stuck. Another thing to consider is the diameter of the fire hose. For this build you need to slide pieces of plywood inside the fire hose, so take the time before you start cutting to find how large the plywood can be while still fitting in the hose.
  2. Once you have decided on your dimensions you can then cut 3 pieces of plywood to the same length (the length of each side of the triangle) and the same width (the width that will fit into the hose you have selected).
  3. You can then take on end of the hose and push all three pieces inside (you can use a hammer if they get wedged in there). Once all of the pieces are inside you can bend them all into a triangle .
  4. After you are happy with the triangle you have created you can cut another piece of plywood at about a 6″ length (or find a scrap piece) and put it into the hose. This will form the top part of the triangle that will accept the eye hook. You can then cut the hose to length leaving about 6″ of spare material used for securing it all together.
  5. Bring everything together to form the triangle with the smaller piece on top. Now with some small 1″ screws, screw through the excess hose and into the plywood underneath. If after a few screws you still want more hold, you can put a bolt all the way thought the excess hose and the plywood and bolt it on the other side.
  6. After you are happy with how secure your materials are you can then drill a hole large enough for the eye bolt through the top of the triangle. You can then slide your eye bolt through both the top and bottom layer of hose as well as the plywood in between and screw it all tight with a washer on either side.
  7. This fire hose triangle toy is ready to hang!

 

Tips/ Comments

If you don’t want to hang this fire hose triangle and instead want it just as an item the animal can play with on the ground you can simply skip step 4 and just secure it all together without the small top piece. This project really got me thinking about the possibilities of forming fire hose together in various shapes for many different applications.

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