The Haven
After getting 2 females baby ratties and realizing they could get through the bars of our current cage, we needed to get a cage with smaller bar spacing. So we had a look on line and found The Haven cage. It was a pretty good price £45.99 and as we had ordered from PetWorldDirect before (got 2 Abodes from them) we decided to order. Four days later the Haven arrived. So far all our orders from them have arrived on a Thursday, regardless of what day we ordered on.
We unpacked the cage and the first thing we noticed was how awful the plastic bottom is. You feel like you could break it just by picking it up! Even the pull out trays that go in the bottom are very poor quality. The actual quality of the metal is fine though.
We started putting it together, which was a pain to do. The instructions are worthless. Three poorly printed pictures and no text. It took about 10 minutes to put the metal pieces together, which with proper instructions would have taken about 30 seconds. Then it came time to fit the metal frame to the base. That's when it went from bad to worse.
The four metal parts at the bottom of the cage didn't line up with the holes on the plastic base, just ever so slightly but enough to make the whole process a pain! A bit of brute force was needed to get them to line up, which would have been fine if the plastic bottom was of decent quality. But because it is so thin and flimsy the plastic actually turned white from the stress. Overall it took about 25 minutes to put the thing together.
It also came with a wooden corner shelf, a house, a hammock, metal ladders and some wooden outer box that attaches to the side of the cage. I'm still not sure what it is but I'm guessing it’s to put something in for your furies to pull into the cage?? Who knows! The corner shelf, house and strange box are now sitting happy in the bin outside because they are worthless. The house, if you can call it that, was 3 bits of wood stuck together. It didn't even resemble a house. The corner shelf was just about big enough for a mouse to sit on and the strange box, well the less said about that the better! The hammock however is pretty nice, so we kept that.
Overall its not a bad cage, the plastic bottom lets it down a bit, but nothing is perfect I guess. If space isn't an issue I would suggest going for something a little bigger like the Abode, for a few £ extra. If, like us, you need a cage with smaller bar spacing, for wriggly babies then its worth looking at.
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The Abode This cage can be bought from Pet World Direct for £58.98 with free P&P. For the price this cage is amazing! It has it's good points and bad (just like any cage). The Bad: The bars are vertical, which makes the bars harder to climb then the horizontal bars. Our females struggled to make any headway when trying to climb it. But our boys have no problems at all. It all depends on how determinded your rats are to make it to the top :) Also, due to the vertical placement of the bars, finding a place for the water bottle can be a bit of a pain. It can easily slide down because there isn't really anywhere for the mouth piece to rest. This can easily be sorted by a tweek of the water bottle clip though. It could probably have done with another door on it as it is pretty deep when you need to stretch in there to attach something or get something out. The Good: First off I have to say the price! You get a lot for your money here. I have never come across a cage of this size and quality for the price. Plus you get the free P&P which is a bonus. It comes on casters so you can wheel it about to your hearts content. A real bonus when you need to move it to hoover underneath it. The bottom tray is so easy to clean. It simply slides out of the bottom of the cage for quickly dumping of the contents. The cage comes flat packed but is so simple to put it together. If I can do it anyone can. It takes about 15 - 20 minutes to assemble. You get the shelf, ladders and a hammock with it.  The SputnikThis comes highly recommend from us. For the price you really can't go wrong. It cost £4.99 and its been worth every penny. We read on all the other forums of all the people that had these so we wanted to know what all the fuss was about, so we decided to keep an eye out for one. Which is quite easy to do since everytime we leave the house we end up in a pet shop somewhere. Found this one at NU-Pets @ Carlisle. The guy who was working there said they werent selling very well. Apparently they ordered 2 in about 6 months ago and this was the second one that they sold to us. I guess there is no Sputnik love up here in Cumbria.
Putting it up was easy as pie. It took all of 2 seconds to clip in onto the top bars and we were ready to rock and roll. This thing is solid too. I was worried that when it was clipped on it would fall down if a little preasure was applied to it. Boy was I wrong. I pushed down on that sucka as hard as I could and there was no give in it what so ever. Comes apart for easy cleaning. Made from good solid plasic, which, like a lot of things, doesnt feel like its going to snap if you look at it the wrong way. Our rats dont really use it to sleep in, but they will run up and sit in there and watch you, which is so funny when your sitting there and you glance over and all you see is this rat staring at you from this satalite shaped yellow object! So to sum it up, what I'm trying to say is, if you havent got one for your ratties, then you should rush out now and treat them.
Supreme ScienceThis is a complete rat food that we are currently using with our fussy eaters, as they pick out the bits that they like and leave the rest to go to waste. This way they are getting all their nutrients with every morsel.
Supreme Petfoods have developed a mono-component fully extruded diet, Supreme Science Selective Rat, with the consideration of both animal and owner, high quality, convenient feeding can be achieved without compromise. Its unique vegetarian formulation, high in polyunsaturated fatty acids and low in saturated fatty acids, assists cardiovascular and circulatory efficiency. Additionally, it promotes the growth of beneficial friendly bacteria within the digestive system, and its unique shape and texture assists dental hygiene through the abrasive action required to chew, crunch and grind. Supreme® Science Selective Rat contains 100% natural ingredients including apple, known for its antioxidant benefits and blackcurrant, an excellent source of natural vitamins. Rita & Poppy seem to like this food which we are happy about! Has anyone else tried this food with their fur babies? If so let me know what you think. |
