Well we have the Hamster Heaven up and running with Kretchers installed in her new home.
It went together quite well, the tubes were a little stiff and I found it difficult to reach to the back of the cage to fit them as my reach wasn't long enough.
With the cage you got, the hammock, food bowl, potty and potty litter and scoop and all the tubing aswell as a water bottle and a Rolly jumbo wheel and stand.
Be warned however I am not sure what they used in the photo but the water bottle cannot be hung above staging as it is too long and the clip doesn't work meaning the bottle slips straight out of the holder.
We simply used Kretchers normal sippy which she likes instead.
The good points I think are:
There is a HUGE front opening into the cage which is great for Kretchers who can easily wander out onto my hand now and makes doing things inside the cage easy.
The staging area is big meaning the hamster can run about on it easily and there is room for the food bowl and space to hang the hammock.
The height of the cage also means Kretchers climbing frame now fits.
The area beneath the staging also provides a large darker area she can retire to if she doesn't like the light.
Kretchers loves climbing and this gives her plenty of opportunity to do it without being too high, however for a bar chewer like her it also means plenty of area to go at.
The whole of the cage and accessories I feel have been designed with the larger hamster in mind, Kretchers has not had a house she can sleep in since she was tiny and she took to her new one which is included straight away and has been in there sleeping all today.
The top is a strange affair the tubes run around the top of the cage and up into a green tupperware type container over which you clip the top door over, allowing another access point and in Kretchers case a versatile upstairs larder in which to store your food away from all those ground dwelling critters.
On the downside
The elbow tubes are quite sharply angled meaning it is difficult for a larger hamster to negotiate them and it appears the idea is for the hamster to some how jump into one of these elbows in order to access the tunnel section, however this was easily rectified as the SAvic is identical to the ferlplast sizing and we simply added a couple of her old tubes to allow her easy access.
The wheel comes with a stand but Kretchers has a habit of knocking them over and so I tried to fit it to the side of the cage but it rubs against the solid plastic base so in order for it to run freely it has to be higher meaning rather a large gap to the floor, in our case I moved the potty (which she doesn't use) to the side of it and Kretchers picked up immediately that she could use this as a step up.
We put her in last night and of course I was worried about the stress it may cause her, all I could hear however was Kalumph, Kalumph, Kalumph, which was Kretchers repeatedly swinging from the ceiling of the cage or her climbing frame before falling off, I had padded the floor well with shavings in case of this but the drop is not too much and she appeared to be really enjoying this.
For the first time in about 6 months she also took an interest in her wheel and was using that for quite a while.
So here are a few photos of the new set up.
Do I think it was worth the money - not sure, but I think so as to see Kretchers clearly enjoying herself and having that much space to run around in was great.
Oh forgot to mention the carry handles which make it easy to transport and at the moment the cage in Pets@Home comes with a free starter kit which isn't bad either.
The cage fits nicely on my shelves and I don't think is much larger than the Gabber space wise is it? I reckon I could get 3 Hamster Heavens on one set of my shelves.
As an aside, I went to my local garden centre today, they were having a clear out and I got a ferplast tank type cage 70 x 40cm with shelving and all accessories for £15.00 reduced from £50.00 - result! It was thick with dust and currently contains 4 dead flies but I think it will brush up nicely. Just need another Hammy to put in it now
Photos are not brilliant I'm afraid as I can't get far enough away to get it all in shot, I need some steps to get high enough to get a ground plan shot!
As you can see Kretchers has kindly agreed to demonstrate some of the key features including the food bowl and ladder options
