I did quite a bit of research and shopping around for a home for my 2 rats, and I might add that I am a first time rat owner. I read books, looked on the internet, and shopped at pet stores near my home to see them in person. I highly recommend this cage for rats. It offers them plenty of space to run around and they love the levels. It is really neat looking too and encourages me to keep it clean (dailty cleaning) as I love the look and design of it. Originally I was concerned about the spacing of the bars, but my rats are only half grown and the bars are close enough that they cannot escape. As with other cages with the plastic shelves, you might find that they are urinating on the shelves which can be messy if they walk through it. I have found that if I add more bowls, toys, boxes, etc. to the shelves that they will more likely use the bottom part where the litter is. I keep a bottle of Nature's Miracle nearby for daily wiping up, another product I'd recommend as it's safe for use around pets. Super Pet My First Home Deluxe Multi-Level Pet Home with Stand
I love this cage! I have two little chinchillas, Giggly Puff and Gaia, and they both just love hopping around on the four levels as well as the ramp, the slide, and the tube thing. I feel like a lot of the other cages at the pet store are a lot smaller and just as expensive. This cage really is a good deal. I especially like the wheels that make the cage easy to move so I can vacuum underneath it or just move it around my room. I think the only critique I could say is that it is sometimes hard to clean the flat, plastic panels because of the ridges and such. Bottom line: this is really a good cage for that price. Other animals besides chinchillas, that would do well in a cage like this would be ratties or ferrets.
My husband and I bought this cage as a new upgrade for our chinchilla. Overall it's a decent cage and it was easy to put together (though difficult to clean). We left out the ramps, slide, and all of the extra stuff. However, I'm now wishing that we had done a bit more searching for something without plastic platforms (we were in a rush for various reasons...no excuse I know!). Our chinchilla has very easily torn through the edges of the platforms, and obviously it isn't healthy for anything to eat plastic, especially chinchillas. It didn't matter how many chew things or how much exercise we gave her, she kept right on eating at the plastic. We just ordered some wooden platforms to replace the plastic and I'm hoping they will attach fine to this cage so that we don't have to buy a new cage completely. If not then I suppose we'll try to sell it, chewed platforms and all.
So if you're considering this for a chinchilla I highly recommend against it. You definitely want to go for something that has wood and/or metal instead of plastic. I honestly don't know what I was thinking with this purchase, other than that I wasn't!
I like this cage so much that i bought it twice! Not because it broke, but because I donated my first one when I decided having rat companions was too hard (they don't live long enough.) Well, being ratless left a big gaping hole in my heart which was so much harder than losing them, so I got another cage and a few more ratties.
PLUS SIDE
-Easy to clean!
- You can order extra shelves (or make your own) which the LOVE.
-They love climbing up and down the sides which is good exercise.
-can't beat the price!
-If you buy this cage from Amazon & there is any problem with broken/missing parts they are SO GOOD about replacing the item with a new one (plus free shipping!), and if need be, call customer service & tell them you need them to send a new cage before you send back the defective one back so your critters have a place to live in the mean time.
MINUS SIDE
-Not good for small (still growing) rats because if they want to, they can squeeze between the bars, which have a one inch spacing. I never had this problem but I take in harder to adopt rats & i think they know a good thing when they find it!
-Needs to be retrofitted for ill/older rats because it can be hard for them maneuver from landing to landing through the hole in the shelf (when my female Little Roo developed inoperable groin tumors I was constantly worried for her so I ordered her a Critter Nation.)
This is a great RAT cage!
I was really disappointed with this.
The Good:
- only took about 20 minutes to put together, all the tools you need are included
- good size, small footprint
- very good door placement, all the spots are easy to reach
- easy to remove cage part for cleaning the bottom
- you don't need them, but the instructions are very clear
- looks like it'd be fun if it worked
- the solid bottom with deep sides is an excellent design for cleaning, you can't really appreciate this until you've tried anything else
The Bad:
- super-cheap plastic, my ramp was broken in the box
- maybe okay for rats, but all the holes were almost too small for my baby ferrets to get through (they're chubby but not THAT chubby)
- my ferrets might be dumber than most, but they couldn't figure out how to use the tunnel or spiral stairs, i think mostly because the turns were too sharp and the passage too narrow. they resorted to climbing the cage wall to get to the next level
- with the cheap plastic, the ramps/tubes/spiral are not sturdy, they shook horribly, even with my tinniest ferret, this made them very nervous and reluctant to even try using them (the fastening mechanisms were fine though, i don't think there was actually any chance of the ramp/tube/spiral actually falling)
- the cage just sits on the wheels, i feel like if there were little kids around they could easily accidentally knock the whole cage over
- my ferrets could open the doors, i had to adjust the latches myself with pliers
- again with the cheap plastic - the cage fastens to the plastic bottom with 2 small plastic fasteners, which are on the verge of breaking after only taking them off twice (you'll probably want to take them off weekly to clean the cage)
- the deep sides on the bottom make it hard for things that latch to the cage bars to reach the floor - litter box / water bottles / food dish were all too high off the ground
Conclusion:
as it is, it's unusable (for ferrets). i scrapped mine for pieces to build a new cage myself - Ferret - Rats - Pet Supplies - Ferret Cage'
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