Small metal parts leave home. A folding cage without its lid pin is just a stack of panels, and the pin is never in the box with the rest of it when you come to reassemble the thing six months later for a vet appointment you are already late for. This is the straight replacement, cut to the same 33cm as the original.

It slides through the hinge line to lock the lid to the body of the cage, which is what stops the top lifting when a cat leans on it or when the whole cage shifts in the back of a car on a roundabout. There is nothing clever about the part and there does not need to be. It is a length of rod doing one job, and only the length and thickness matter.

• Replacement lid pin for folding wire cages
• Total length: 33cm
• Secures the lid during use and transport
• A direct swap for the pin supplied as standard
• Worth keeping a spare alongside the cage

Worth knowing. We have the length, 33cm, and nothing else. Measure the pin you have lost, or the hole it passed through, and send us the figure.

Who it's for: Anyone whose folding wire cage is sitting out of action for want of a single piece of metal.