Product Review - Trixie Natural Living Playground
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Review 1 of 2
Place Purchased: Surrey Pet Supplies
Price: £4.45
Score: 7/10
The Trixie Natural Living Playground is a large wooden climbing frame with a platform and seesaw. It has a hook at one end to secure it to the cage bars.
Pros:
This is slightly more complex than your usual climbing apparatus, and my mice seemed to particularly enjoy it. The ledge at the top overhangs the ladders slightly and, as any climber will tell you, overhangs are hard work. For active, agile mice, it provides a good challenge - especially if you strategically place some treats at the top.
The Playground is charmingly rustic, and would be quite pretty in a ‘natural-look’ setup.
Cons:
Not all mice will like the seesaw.
The construction is a bit too rustic - in particular, the rungs of the ladders are made from very thin twigs which are quickly gnawed through, whereas the platform, seesaw, and ledge at the top are made of quite thick offcuts that would stand up to a considerable amount of gnawing. Different parts of the Playground will therefore wear at different rates, and the challenge of getting to the top ledge will become more difficult as ladder rungs disappear.
The Playground is quite large, and would take up too much room in most cages. However, it makes an excellent free-range toy.
Overall:
At the price I paid for it, the Trixie Natural Living Playground is definitely value for money, and I would recommend it to anyone who has active mice that enjoy climbing. My mice are usually more interested in escaping than playing during free-range time, so the fact that they frequently stopped to examine and play with the Playground during their last free-range is a resounding vote of approval from them. It’s also nice to look at, in a rough and natural sort of way, and is a refreshing change from the bright colours and shiny plastic of most pet toys.
Update:
Rating: 8/10
I originally gave the Trixie Natural Living Playground a mark of 7/10. Several months later, it has become so loved by my spiny mice that it has earned itself a permanent place in their cage, despite its size, and thus I feel it deserves an extra mark.
When I wrote my original review, my main concern was the thin twigs used to make the rungs of the ladders. Since then, many of the twigs have indeed been gnawed through, but a couple of the ladders still remain intact, and the spiny mice tend not to use the ladders anyway as they are athletic enough to hop straight up onto the top ledge from a standing start. They occasionally sit on the seesaw/swing, and they also take great delight in gnawing at the bark. For perhaps a year’s worth of climbing frame and chew toy, I feel the Playground is definitely worth the fiver it cost me and I would recommend it to anyone with a cage large enough to accommodate it.
Reviewer:Cub
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Review 2 of 2
Place Purchased: Zooplus
Price: £12
Score: 10/10
The mice love to climb up and all over this. I usually use it with extra ladders etc. which makes it even better. It can be dismantled for easy storage, although it did come with glue if you wanted to keep it up. Despite it being built and then unbuilt regularly it is doing really well. My mice get to play with this when they’re out of the cage, in the playpen. This means that they don’t have enough time to chew much of the wood.
I think that £12 is quite a lot to pay for it but the amount of fun that the mice get out of it, I think it’s worth it.
Overall I think this is a great toy, it allows lots of room for climbing, which some of my mice love to do.
Reviewer: Heatherrrs
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