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.

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]

Originally Posted by HamstersAreHardcore

Sounds a great cage lol !

You're being sarcastic I hope?

[wofunny]

^^^^^ i think he is

[HamstersAreHardcore]

Originally Posted by DeweyTheHammy

You're being sarcastic I hope?

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