The Dreadful Savic Spelos

[h3rne]

I've searched this thread and am surprised to find that this most notorious cage has no review. For the benefit of those in a hurry suffice to say "Don't buy one!" I'm only posting because I'd like to make sure no-one purchases one of these dreadful homes for their beloved hams.

I still have three in the loft, and can't even bring myself to give them away.
http://www.savic.be/sites/default/files/imagecache/medium1/0190.jpg
Image linked from the manufacturer's website.

Pros:


It has two access doors - a reason that I rate the Cambridge far above the Peggy, it makes a huge difference in managing the cage contents and interacting with your Hamster. IMHO you should always go for multiple access points if you can afford it. Just don't buy this cage!
You can connect a number of them together, so theoretically they are a modular system.


Cons:


The cage doors are lethal. They open upwards, are made of heavy steel, white coated bars that prop open only by a little over-tip. The slightest brush can cause them to come crashing down with enough force to crush an escaping hamster. A minor design tweak could solve this by making the doors open downwards, by allowing the clips and the hinges to swap places but they are very slightly different and it would actually involve a major modification.
Only a single level - the floor.
The Wheel and Water Bottle have fixed positions, limiting your options on where to place things.
The tube access points (4 of them) make the cage base fiddly to clean and it's too easy to replace them incorrectly so a determined Rob can push/chew them out.
The extra tubes are stupidly expensive, and the tiny locating pins on the two halves easily snap off, filling the locating hole, so the two haves become "married" - you then can't randomly pair them because the filled hole stops them fitting properly. And they're a pain to clean (especially in large quantities).
The geometry of the cage means that adjacent side and front tube holes can't be joined by a simple combination of pieces, which shows a consistent lack of thought in the design process.
It's quite small even for a single dwarf, partly due to the lack of levels. We originally housed 3 baby Robs in two connected cages - inevitably territorial fights broke out.
The base can't even be used as a washing up bowl.

I'm sure there's lots more. Please feel free to contribute your own gripes!

[Flissy]

It is an awful cage... I would probably use it as a carry cage like I use my rotastak pods :)

Saying that though... it was the cage i was going to buy when I decided I wanted to get a hamster last year D:

But I got the savic peggy with tubes instead which isn't much better for my syrian, which was ok for the first few months but was obviously way too small so I extended it and now he lives in a hamster heaven :)

[HamstersAreHardcore]

Sounds a great cage lol !

[helenp]

We were sold this by P@H when we adopted out first little dwarf George from their adoption centre. We kept him in it for one night only and went out and got a much bigger and better cage the next day. He just hid that first night anyway as he was traumatised by his experiences with a nasty child before he adopted him.

We use the cage as a carrier now.

[trood]

I agree, it's a dreadful cage. I recently took a chinese hamster off a lady who's little girl had got bored with her pet, and she had her in this cage. While my ham is lovely this cage is definitely not! I hate keeping her in there and have ordered a Duna Multy, which I hope arrives ASAP as the more I look at the Spelos the more I hate it! When my new cage arrives, as you say, I don't think I can even bring myself to give this one away!

[wofunny]

i take it you dont like this cage then? xD

[SarahJ]

i used to have one of my chinese's in this cage! but i did buy two and connect them together buy the tubes!
I have to agree though its not a very good cage and only kept my chinese it in for about 2 months until i had the money to buy him a bigger cage!

[DeweyTheHammy]

Sounds a great cage lol !

You're being sarcastic I hope?

[wofunny]

^^^^^ i think he is :)

[HamstersAreHardcore]

You're being sarcastic I hope?

Course I am !!!!!!!!!!

[Amethyst_ice]

I'
The base can't even be used as a washing up bowl.


love it lol x

[debs]

i had too of theses for one dwarfs each when i first got them but about two weeks later but i ended up getting a bigger one. but yea there really SMALL i dont like them.

[MissGSFL]

I was told by P@H that this cage was fine for two robos! I only found out it wasn't after one gave birth and I bought a second one to split the mum and her sister up!

The moment I found out it was too small I moved them into bigger cages!

However it did make a good emergency nursery cage because the bars allowed ventilation, but were too high for the babies to reach and the spout of the water bottle was low enough for them.

But really don't get it! I have 2 in the garage that will either be used as travel cages or be added onto a larger Savic cage if I ever get one

[Knotty]

This is so much like that little ferplast cage- the combi 1 I think it's called...

To be sold as a cage suitable for two dwarves is really silly... Travel cages yeah fair enough and maybe if you have an injured or ill ham but really!!?? A home for two dwarves?? :(

[racinghamster]

When I see cages like I get an overwhelming urge to get my hammer out. ;-) I cannot believe that shops and retailers online are even allowed to sell these montrosities as small animal caging in the 21st century and it will go on and on until people start to take more responsibility for their actions and that means, don`t buy a cage until you have done your research. Pet shops are not the best people to ask because they will sell you a shoebox given half a chance.

[mangoandmimi]

Whenever i see these or similar sized bits of plastic lying around on gumtree locally for under a fiver, i always pick them up and either use it (as a travel cage..) or don't, it's just to stop other silly people from thinking 'ooooh look - fully furnished hamster cage - BARGAIN!' and buying it.

[Pompompoms]

I think what happens is that as with many other types of shop and service, people go in and ask people that are paid to advise about that particular subject what their best options are.
Personally I don't think this is unreasonable at all for the general public, going into a pet store and asking people whose job it is to advise about pets, you would imagine the advice you are going to get is up to date, detailed, subject specific, and above all correct.

This is exactly what I did when I got my first hamsters, and I came out with two lovely robos, and the terrible Savic Spelos. I had no reason at all to doubt that the lovely girl who took so much time to give me so much information wasn't as knowledgeable as she could and arguably should have been. I joined HC, and very quickly got much bigger everything for my robos, and did feel guilty and a little embarrassed when I read more than a few times I should have done the research myself.
That was a long time ago now, and in hindsight I shouldn't have felt any guilt or embarrassment for seeking out professionals employed in the subject I was interested in, talking to them at length and gathering as much info from them as possible. The problem I feel lies with the cages being seen as acceptable in the first place, not with the duped consumer.

I'm happy to say I haven't seen anything this small in my local store for a long time now, hopefully something that is not just a localized change.

As for the Spelos? I didn't quite hit it with a hammer, but lets just say it was rendered useless a long time ago now.

[DwarfHam]

So colorful hamster cage :D

[crazygal330]

The thing I find puzzling is that savic make some fab cages. They are generally speaking my favourite 'brand'. The hamster heaven, mickey 2xl, the freddy rat cages and the almightly Savic royal Suite (best rat cage ever!!)
It is such a dissapointment that they also make this crappy kind of stuff too. :(

[Wisper]

I had a pair of Robos given to me in this cage and needless to say they moved as soon as possible its just awful. They were skittish from over a year of no handling and doors that made an almighty crash everytime you opened them really didnt help.

The worst thing is that stupid tube on the front. My Robos would hide in there and they were near impossible to get out if I was trying to remove them to clean the cage (which got smelly very fast as it was so small). It was also horrible to clean. All round a bad cage, couldnt even recomend it as a carry cage.

[Willow's mummy!]

I had a pair of Robos given to me in this cage and needless to say they moved as soon as possible its just awful. They were skittish from over a year of no handling and doors that made an almighty crash everytime you opened them really didnt help.

The worst thing is that stupid tube on the front. My Robos would hide in there and they were near impossible to get out if I was trying to remove them to clean the cage (which got smelly very fast as it was so small). It was also horrible to clean. All round a bad cage, couldnt even recomend it as a carry cage.

Well, I do use it as a carry cage - because I've got it. And I'd rather use my money to get bigger cages and other lovely things for the hamsters than replace it...

I have it because our first Syrian was in it when she was given to my younger son, and I got her a bigger cage as quickly as I could, but I've used end caps to close off the tubes (they came with the Mickey2XL which was the replacement cage).

Fortunately, I've only needed to use it once - to put our other Syrian in when we brought her home from P@H's adoption centre. I put the cardboard pet carrier in the Spelos so we didn't need to be holding on tightly to this nervous little girl all the way home - glad I did, she'd made it out of the box & was looking round the cage by the time we'd got to the till!