sshelle's Full Review: Hartz Play City Extreme Home
I raised mice, gerbils, and hamsters for years. . . we're talking 80 + cages at a time. I made my own cages out of Sterilite boxes and hardware cloth. When PetCo came to town, I sold everything. Naturally, now my daughter wants a pet gerbil. Actually, she wanted a hamster, but I convinced her to go to a gerbil (much nicer). Anyway, she just HAD to have a 'fun' cage. We looked at PetCo, but there was no way we were going to pay $80 for a cage. She didn't want to use a 10-gallon aquarium (which I highly recommend), so we went to Walmart and found this for less than half of the PetCo cage costs.
We get home and I snap the thing together. Some of it is wire, and some of it is plastic. The wire sides snap down into the plastic base securely, but the individual sides just support each other with half-hooks nestling the straight side of the next side. So if you pull the top or bottom off, there is nothing hooking the sides together. Which is fine normally. But one time I walked into the room and the gerbil was laying down with one leg straight out---she had someone gotten one toe lodged between two wire sides. The wires on each side are far enough apart to prevent this, but where the sides meet, the wires are much closer together. So I had to quickly separate the sides and free her toe. Not cool.
I do like the water bottle. It isn't very big, maybe the equivalent of one of those half-sized cylindrical bottles, but gerbils are desert animals and don't drink as much as other small animals. It is blue somewhat flexible plastic in a flattened box shape. The spigot is metal and has a ball in it, so that water flows freely when the gerbil drinks, but the ball keeps the water from dripping out otherwise. At least it's not one of those 'test tube' looking water bottles that always leaks. The water bottle has a little projection that wedges between wires on any side, and it rests on any cross-wire. You don't have to open the cage to refill the water.
There are openings for tubes, wheels, extra 'bedrooms', etc. There is one opening on each side of the cage and one opening at the top of the cage (which you have to have a tube attached to if you ever want the animal to get up there). We also bought a box of circular tubes and extra plain tubes, but could never get them to securely attach, so we didn't end up using them. The cage comes with an exercise wheel and one 'bedroom'. You can put either on either side of the cage, or leave them off and plug the access holes with provided 'doors'.
I like the wheel-- it is plastic and doesn't squeak. It also is solid, so the animals feet don't fall through when they run. However, it just snaps on to the side of the cage (it doesn't twist on and interlock), so I have my doubts as to how long it will last.
So far our gerbil uses her 'extra bedroom' as a bathroom, which is fine (and easier to clean), but there is an access hole in the bottom for another tube to come in from the bottom. We don't have a tube there, so we plugged the hole with one of the 'doors'. The door is ventilated however, so bedding that the gerbil brings in just falls through (and 'gerbil deposits' as well).
The top of the 'extra bedroom' slides off for 'easy' access to the pet, but it is not easy to slide off unless you remove the box from the cage (so what's the point?). Also, the 'extra bedroom' also just snaps on to the side of the cage, so if the gerbil were to go ballistic in the bedroom (digging or whatever), I have my doubts that it would stay attached.
The bottom of the cage is several inches deep, and one solid piece of plastic. That makes it very easy to clean---just dump, wipe out, and refill. Also with a solid bottom, the animals don't get sores on their feet and legs. However, to dump the cage for cleaning, you have to pull the top (wire sides and plastic 'dome') off. When you do that, wall pieces fall off and separate from each other, and the dome pops loose from the walls as well. Sigh. So you basically have to reassemble the cage every time you clean. I wanted our daughter to take care of the gerbil, but there's no way she can reassemble this each time.
Included with the cage is also a little platform for the gerbil to hide under (or stand on). You access the gerbil by opening a wire 'window' that is in the middle of the plastic dome on top of the cage. The wire 'window' is not completely hooked onto the cage, it just hooks loosely, so when you open the window, the wire window usually comes loose of the cage. When the window is closed, it hooks securely to the wire walls of the cage, but accessing the animal isn't easy. Also, the window opening isn't very big. You can reach in, but if the animal doesn't want to be caught, you'll have to take the plastic dome off the top of the cage (or wait until it goes into an accessory, and then unsnap the accessory from the cage). Sigh.
When the gerbil is in the cage, it is pretty secure. Assuming the snap-on accessories don't come off, there is no way an animal could get out, even if it was a big chewer. But the overall construction is not well thought-out. I wonder how long the makers would use the cage if they had to clean it and catch the gerbil and stuff.
Comfortable and complete home Sturdy and easy to clean Raised based minimizes bedding overflow Round edges to resist chewing Connects to all Hartz Pla...More at Amazon
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