Product Reviews - Habitrail Cage System
|
 |
Review 1 of 2
Place purchased: Local pet shop
Price: Main cage £20 and each add-on cost about £5.
Score: 7/10
The basic set-up is one smallish rectangular cage, designed as a sort of cross-between a plastic tank and a wire cage. You can then add more tubes, and small compartments. You can even buy two (or more) of the basic cages and just connect them with a tube, to give the mice more space. The concept is similar to Rotastak, but Habitrail is far superior in my humble opinion.
Pro’s:
- The basic cage has wire bars, so there is plenty of ventilation and the mice can climb if they wish, but it also has a plastic ‘debri shield’ at the front, so they cannot chuck too much mess out through the bars of the cage.
- The shape of the basic cage is good, there is a fair amount of floor space (although I wouldn’t use just one of these cages on it’s own, that seems a bit too small), and room to add a platform or extra level if you wish.
- The bars on the Mini are really close together, so even tiny young mice cannot escape. (This is not the case with the other three cage types, which are designed for hamsters, but even so the bars are fine for adult mice.)
- It’s relatively easy to clean, compared to similar style cages, and easy to assemble. The tubes lock together, instead of just pushing into eachother, so it’s much more secure.
- It comes with plenty of accessories, and is definitely very good value for money.
- Most of the add-on compartments are excellent, and certainly make good nests, though perhaps a little expensive considering the price of the basic cage unit.
Con’s:
- The water bottle/bowl ‘Mushroom Oasis’ that comes with the Mini is absolute rubbish, the mice just tip it over and get the whole cage soaked. A standard mouse water bottle works much better, but the bars of the cage are so tightly spaces that you cannot fit the spout of a water bottle through, so you either have to bend one of the bars with pliers to make a bigger gap, or find some way of attatching the bottle inside the cage. (Again, this is not a problem with any of the other three types of cages.)
- The main door is big but not huge, and there are so many tubes to hide in, so getting the mice out can be almost impossible. I can only get my girls out by herding them all into an add-on, and then disconnecting it from the cage. My girls are perfectly tame a friendly, they just like to be awkward, so I would definitely not reccomend this cage if you have nervous mice!
- The tube connectors do wear out after a while, so if you have an ‘attic’ add-on it can be a bit wobbly, or, at worst, rather dangerous. Luckily you can buy replacement connectors.
- My girls keep their cage fairly clean, but with young mice, male mice, or particularly messy mice, it certainly would get smelly quickly, and would need cleaning quite a bit. The tubes are fiddly to clean; I only have to thoroughly clean them every few months (I just clean the basic cage and wipe the tubes every week), I wouldn’t want to clean them more often than this, so for smelly males this cage may be rather tedious to maintain.
In conclusion: Very good value for money, and perfect for a group of friendly adult female mice.
Reviewer: Sasha
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Review 2 of 2
Place purchased: Local pet shop
Price: About £20
Score: 9/10
This is a great Cage to buy. It is easy to put together. It is a mixture of plastic and cage wire. With an option of tubes (tunnels) and compartments for you mice to explore, this cage keeps your mice occupied for a long time. I like this cage as it’s easy to clean and my mice love it.
The things that come with the cage:
-Mushroom hide out,
-Fly wheel with special gap in the middle to get rid off poo and other solid objects that the mice bring in the wheel,
-Water bowl and food bowl
-Two tunnel stoppers. This is to block the two holes at each side of the cage where you put the tunnels. You have these on until you get some tunnels.
Pros:
Very easy to put together (as long as you read the instructions),
Fly wheel is very nice and comes with a special gap in the middle and is hung from the top of the cage,
Tubes are fun to put up and are easy to do so,
The bottom of the cage just unclips so you can easily clean the cage out without taking it apart,
It is like the mice’s natural habitat because mice live in one main area and have many other little areas suronding it. This can be replicated on the habitrail cages.
You can add more cages together (two or more habitrail cages)
The cage is bright and colourful
And it is really good value.
Cons:
Drink bowl isn’t the best as you can only store tiny amounts of water so I find myself constantly refilling it,
Flywheel is a little bit noisy and I haven’t found a way to oil it yet,
My mice’s tails dangle though the gap in the wheel and then after running for a while they stop suddenly and they slide back with the wheel. I always think that they will get their tail’s trapped on the top of the wheel.
The mice like to hid in the tubes so it can be hard to get them out if they are new or nervous
And the cage door isn’t very big.
I rate this cage a 9/10 because its fun for the mouse, is like the natural habitat for the mouse, is great fun putting the tubes together and is easy to maintain.
Reviewer: Crazymouse
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
