Savic Plaza or Barney possibly....

[Quicksilver]

Hello we've decided to upgrade our Savic Ruffy (80 cm x 50cm) to a bigger cage for our next hamster.
Savic Ruffy we found to be sturdy cage with a great base however the access door on the top wasn't ideal and we found the cage slightly too small at times and cluttered when filled with syrian toys!
We have cupboard space to sit a cage length of maximum 120cm by 60cm wide. I really like wire cages with plastic base as I feel give best ventilation plus you can design a lot as being able to hang toys and attach shelves to the wire.
The Barney looks a great cage (seen on zooplus) and is a fair bit cheaper than the Savic Plaza (and very slightly bigger than Plaza) -however I like the large front door opening on the Savic Plaza. Also we have two Savic shelves with ramps that we want to use and I did wonder if they would only fit properly on another Savic cage. We were unable to use two shelves at the same time in the Ruffy cage but in a cage of 100 cm length or more we would be able to along with their wheel. We also have little individual wooden shelves too which I think would go in most wire cages.
Unfortunately we are not great at DIY and don't trust ourselves making a hamster safe cage! Otherwise this would be a great option with upgrading the cage. If you've seen our lopsided bookcase your know why this isn't a good idea!
I remember seeing on the National Hamster Council website (about 2 years ago) a wire cage recommended that I believe was about 115 -120cm in length. I checked it out on Amazon but it wasn't in stock anymore. I can't remember the name as not on the new NHC website -possible called Sky Tilo? Is this cage still manufactured? As if it was available I think this would be even better as longer in length = can fit more toys.
We hope to get a new cage end April /May time. We're planning to adopt a syrian hamster from p@h or local shelter.
Sorry this is a long wish thread. Any thoughts much appreciated!
Thanks!

[hellobg]

Originally Posted by Quicksilver

Hello we've decided to upgrade our Savic Ruffy (80 cm x 50cm) to a bigger cage for our next hamster.
Savic Ruffy we found to be sturdy cage with a great base however the access door on the top wasn't ideal and we found the cage slightly too small at times and cluttered when filled with syrian toys!
We have cupboard space to sit a cage length of maximum 120cm by 60cm wide. I really like wire cages with plastic base as I feel give best ventilation plus you can design a lot as being able to hang toys and attach shelves to the wire.
The Barney looks a great cage (seen on zooplus) and is a fair bit cheaper than the Savic Plaza (and very slightly bigger than Plaza) -however I like the large front door opening on the Savic Plaza. Also we have two Savic shelves with ramps that we want to use and I did wonder if they would only fit properly on another Savic cage. We were unable to use two shelves at the same time in the Ruffy cage but in a cage of 100 cm length or more we would be able to along with their wheel. We also have little individual wooden shelves too which I think would go in most wire cages.
Unfortunately we are not great at DIY and don't trust ourselves making a hamster safe cage! Otherwise this would be a great option with upgrading the cage. If you've seen our lopsided bookcase your know why this isn't a good idea!
I remember seeing on the National Hamster Council website (about 2 years ago) a wire cage recommended that I believe was about 115 -120cm in length. I checked it out on Amazon but it wasn't in stock anymore. I can't remember the name as not on the new NHC website -possible called Sky Tilo? Is this cage still manufactured? As if it was available I think this would be even better as longer in length = can fit more toys.
We hope to get a new cage end April /May time. We're planning to adopt a syrian hamster from p@h or local shelter.
Sorry this is a long wish thread. Any thoughts much appreciated!
Thanks!

The cage you are probably looking for is the Skyline Tilo, as for the upgrades both seems fine. The Barney's shelves seems kind of good enough on its own since hamsters uses ground space, there are also cages in the German Amazon (amazon.de) that has a large front doors and top doors called the Borneo. The Plaza is also a good cage, though I don't know what bar spacing it has.

[cypher]

Either the Barney or the Plaza would be great, the size difference isn't that much & the Plaza is plenty big enough, not sure if the shelves you have would fit or not tbh though.
I think a large front door is a really big bonus, all my cages have large front doors & it makes the initial taming so much easier as well as making day to day things like spot cleaning or just doing food & water easier too.

[Quicksilver]

Hi cypher and hellobq. Thank you for responses about the Savic and Barney. I agree that a large front door would make taming/spot cleaning a lot easier and given virtually the same floor space the Savic seems the slightly better choice in the long run - plus the cage flat packs too when not in use !
I checked out amazon.de and the Borneo cage looks great too - has slightly bigger floor space than Savic/Barney and also has large front door and large top door too. Am going to make enquiries about the delivery cost of this and whether they ship to UK. If within our budget would be tempted on this cage otherwise I feel its the Savic Plaza that gets the thumbs up and would be our first choice of cage.

[cypher]

The Borneo is a really nice cage but as far as I know it no longer ships to the UK.

[Quicksilver]

That's a shame if they don't ship to UK. Thanks for that cypher. Savic Plaza will make a great cage and looking forward to welcoming a hamster soon into our home

[Pebbles82]

I would go for the Savic Plaza especially as you already have extra shelves. It would be my first choice and I already have a Barney cage. The Barney is about 4cm deeper in terms of floor space but the Plaza is still a great size at 100cm by 50cm. It is taller by about 3 or 4cm, hence the extra shelves would be good and you'd also need to fill the base with substrate to effectively reduce the height and cushion any falls. To stop it falling out round the edges you could justhave the substrate deeper in the middle than the edges (a sort of mound).

I believe someone who has the Plaza says the height is actually 48cm internally rather than the 50cm quoted so it's not too bad.

I think the Savic shelves would fit fine - they just screw between the bars don't they? Like lots of non standard shelves.

A large front opening door is a great thing to have, not just for taming and access to things in the cage, but it means the roof is completely free to attach things to wherever you want and I have things attached to the roof such as hanging rat sputniks and a large rat tunnel which leads from a shelf to a sputnik so it gives the opportunity for a whole extra level/run. Much easier with no door on the roof.

The height isn't really an issue as long as any hard or sharp point toys are either under a shelf or on a shelf so they can only land on something soft if they happen to monkey bar across the roof and drop

I think there are some other advantages to the Plaza as well - Savic bases tend to be much better made/more solid than the Skyline ones. The bars tend to be stronger too - although I haven't actually seen this particular cage. The Plaza can also fold down flat for storage if necessary or if you ever wanted to take it away with you.

I would get the Plaza. Not sure where you've seen it but Pets at Home has it at the more reasonable price I think.

The Skyline Tilo is actually the same as the Barney but different contents and a different colour.

Not sure which part of the country you're in but I'm looking for an 80cm by 50cm Savic base to replace a broken one, so could buy the Ruffy from you - but we're in the North East so it might not be viable!

[RedTiger]

This is exactly the dilemma I’m having - if the Barney had a large front door I would get that but i can’t seem to find my ideal cage. I’m not so keen on the accessories that come with the plaza and it’s already more expensive so buying new accessories just adds to the cost again.

I keep going round in circles between the Alaska, Barney and plaza!

I have found a discount code which gives 15% discount on the plaza making it a bit nearer the cost of the barney. Does anyone here have the plaza? I think having no roof opening is holding me back on this one too - can the roof pop off for easier access to get things in and out if required? I don’t have a hamster as yet, just doing my research just now and buying the cage etc first so I’m not sure whether a roof opening as well as the front opening is necessary.

[Coco61]

If you look on the forum section Cage Reviews, on the first page is a Savic Plaza Review started by April Pearl after she bought one. Worth a read.

[cypher]

RedTiger once you have the cage set up top doors are of little or no use in my experience & with the very large front door on the plaza you should be able to access everything you need to easily enough not to need that extra door on the top.
The review Coco mentioned is here.