**ADORABLE RAT PICS!!**

[lv4dogs]

right now they are in a martins cage (older model) kinda similar to the skyscraper but it only has 3 half floors instead of the 2 half floors & one full floor (besides the full bottom level). And mine is a little taller too. I know i will stick w/ martins cages & probably get the skyscraper or something similar (they make custom cages too). but i would stay in the $100 range.


I know what you meen about the super pets being hard to clean i learned the hard way. That is one of the first things i look at now, is if the cage will be easy to clean!
i raised rats/hamsters/gerbils for years & years & also own ferrets so I am quite familiar by now as to the pros & cons of most cages!

[luckies4me]

I personally dislike Martins cages very much. They are one of the cheapest rat cages, or small animal cages for that manner, that is on the market, and it's very sad they are so sought after and that people don't know better just because it's word of mouth and the "fad" right now. Their cages are extremely cheap, their wire bends so easily, and they don't do much for odor control even powder coated as their feces always manage to get stuck to the bars, and getting them off when you can't reach every nook an cranny is a big pain. Their coating flakes off extremely fast, and if you have a chewer get ready for major flakes and stink. I got rid of my Martins cage the first chance I could, and will NEVER get another. In fact, they are going on my cage list as NOT recommended. And to think I spent $126 bucks on them too.

The best cages, although a little more expensive but WELL worth it, are Quality Cages. They use heavy duty metal, not cheap flimsly kind like Martins, and it cannot be bent by a person, you need a special machine beecause it's so tough, and unlike Martins they actually provide urine guards, which are HIGHLY needed with any Martins cages, especially if you have males who squirt their urine instead of drop it. They may be a little heavier, but so worth it!!! They just last forever! My chinchillas cage was over 6 years old, and still in excellent shape. Also another thing about Martins cages is that it's a pain in the a$$ to put them together, and once you do have all the clips on (most people use zip ties as it's a heck of a lot easier to assemble) they rust from the urine very quickly and need to be changed, or the cages looks dirty.

My ratties also have the comfort perches, but one word of advice about those is to make sure to rinse them out with bleach every week, because the rats always tend to pee on them, and the urine gets absorbed very quickly and they tend to stink fairly fast. But as long as you keep them clean they should be fine. My rats also enjoy the Manzanita branches. They are one of their favorite toys to climb on.

The pics are cute BTW. I still can't get over how much Fred looks like my Rainbow Bridge Thor.

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by lv4dogs

I know what you meen about the super pets being hard to clean i learned the hard way. That is one of the first things i look at now, is if the cage will be easy to clean!

Can you explain to me what exactly makes the Superpet cages hard to clean? I have my 5 boys in a Multi Floor Ferret cage and I find it to be the easier cage to clean I have ever owned in my whole life. It rinses incredibly easy, and I never have to scrub it because nothing ever sticks to it. I always had to scrub my Martins cages because the feces stuck to the bottom, and it always held their fecal and urine smell, which was not pleasent. My Supetpet cage takes me all about 5 minutes to rinse all the levels and the bottom. It's truly fantastic!

[Desert Arabian]

Originally posted by luckies4me
Can you explain to me what exactly makes the Superpet cages hard to clean? I have my 5 boys in a Multi Floor Ferret cage and I find it to be the easier cage to clean I have ever owned in my whole life. It rinses incredibly easy, and I never have to scrub it because nothing ever sticks to it. I always had to scrub my Martins cages because the feces stuck to the bottom, and it always held their fecal and urine smell, which was not pleasent. My Supetpet cage takes me all about 5 minutes to rinse all the levels and the bottom. It's truly fantastic!

I have a horrible back, and it kills me to clean any cage, but the Super Pet cage was even harder on my back. I am extremely short, so cleaning the top level was hard, I had to stand on a chair. Take out the shelves and putting them back in killed me, because they were so hard to get on and some where hard to get off. The "clips" that are on the shelves where very tough and it took a lot of force to clip them back to the wire. The ladders were also very hard for me to get back on the bottom of the shelving for the same reason- the clips were really tight.

At one time I had 10 rats in my multi-floor and the whole cage was soiled in a day, it was so hard to keep up with the cleaning, and it was hard for me to get the urine completely out of the little ditches on the shelving.

If I didn't have such a bad back, I would LOVE the cage, because it was an awesome size for the rats, I know they really loved it, but I got sick and tired of having my parents spend hundreds of dollars on chiropractic bills all due to cleaning the cage.

I am going to a orthopedic surgeon (soon) to get my back and knees looked at, maybe he can fix me so I can get another huge cage for my children, I really hope so...

[luckies4me]

Hrmm, I have never had a problem clipping on the pieces and to be they are very easy to get everything out of. I just take them out and rinse them off.

BUT, I think you may have had a bigger cage than I do now. Here is the cage I am talking again........

scroll down to the bottom of the page.......

http://www15.brinkster.com/luckies4me/About_Us.html

So that may be why we have a different opinion.

I must say and gosh darnet I forgot to as I was afraid I was going to lose my post, that your rats are very lovely!

[lv4dogs]

Originally posted by luckies4me
Can you explain to me what exactly makes the Superpet cages hard to clean? I have my 5 boys in a Multi Floor Ferret cage and I find it to be the easier cage to clean I have ever owned in my whole life. It rinses incredibly easy, and I never have to scrub it because nothing ever sticks to it. I always had to scrub my Martins cages because the feces stuck to the bottom, and it always held their fecal and urine smell, which was not pleasent. My Supetpet cage takes me all about 5 minutes to rinse all the levels and the bottom. It's truly fantastic!

first off the doors were quite small so its kinda hard to get your arm in there (on a big cage) to clean everywhere, also large ferret type litter boxes dont fit in the doors, neither do large boxes and such. And as mentioned the shelves were sometimes hard to take apart to clean & if you left them in there to clean them it was hard to get the grooves clean.

mind you this was years ago when i had one, they may have changed a little & may be ok for rats now. I know a LOT of people that have ferrets & they really dislike even the brand new models.

I personally dislike Martins cages very much. They are one of the cheapest rat cages, or small animal cages for that manner, that is on the market, and it's very sad they are so sought after and that people don't know better just because it's word of mouth and the "fad" right now. Their cages are extremely cheap, their wire bends so easily, and they don't do much for odor control even powder coated as their feces always manage to get stuck to the bars, and getting them off when you can't reach every nook an cranny is a big pain. Their coating flakes off extremely fast, and if you have a chewer get ready for major flakes and stink. I got rid of my Martins cage the first chance I could, and will NEVER get another. In fact, they are going on my cage list as NOT recommended. And to think I spent $126 bucks on them too.

I picked my martins cage right up at martins, they put it together for me for free! So that was not an issue for me! I have had my martins rat cage for 5 years now & no odor, still easy to clean, its not dented or anything. The floor pan is metal not plastic & it just started top get a tiny tiny speck of rust, thats why im looking into getting a new one shotly (one with a plastic bottom) . But even with the metal bottom i never had a problem w/ feces being stuck to it. They do chew the coating a bit but i am really suprised that 5 years & about 15-18 rats later they is not much wear on them.
as far as being a "fad" right now golly geese i have know these to be popular for at least 16+ years since i was first introduced to small animals (besides hamster & gebils that i raised for years before that)


there are many good cages out there & to each their own. its just that i like matins & never had a problem with them. I also have 2 midwest cages for my ferrets (i did some remodeling & combined the 2) but they are ussually not great cages at all but I got it to work great for me, personally i like it better than most ferret cages.

[lv4dogs]

Originally posted by luckies4me
Hrmm, I have never had a problem clipping on the pieces and to be they are very easy to get everything out of. I just take them out and rinse them off.

BUT, I think you may have had a bigger cage than I do now. Here is the cage I am talking again........

scroll down to the bottom of the page.......

http://www15.brinkster.com/luckies4me/About_Us.html

So that may be why we have a different opinion.

I must say and gosh darnet I forgot to as I was afraid I was going to lose my post, that your rats are very lovely!

is that your place? lovely rattery you have!!!!!!
yeah i had the bigger cage. my martins is very simmilar to the black cage on that page (last pic)

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by lv4dogs
first off the doors were quite small so its kinda hard to get your arm in there (on a big cage) to clean everywhere, also large ferret type litter boxes dont fit in the doors, neither do large boxes and such. And as mentioned the shelves were sometimes hard to take apart to clean & if you left them in there to clean them it was hard to get the grooves clean.

Well the one I have is not the tall one. The doors are also fairly large, and the top open up so you can reach into the cage to wherever you want. I can understand the tall one being hard to clean, but this smaller one is fantastic!

[luckies4me]

Originally posted by lv4dogs
is that your place? lovely rattery you have!!!!!!
yeah i had the bigger cage. my martins is very simmilar to the black cage on that page (last pic)

Thanks!!! I don't have all my cages pictured, and when I took those pics they had like no toys in there lol.


That black cage is the R695. It's the only one I have experience with, so the others may just be better quality, I don't know. But for what I paid for it, to be so flimsy (I mean, you can bend it with your hands, doesn't sound like a quality poduct does it?) I really am dissapointed with the company. If you ever try a Quality Cage you would never go back to Martins. They are heavy duty Quality cages, hence their name. They are also a great company because they reguarly donate to my local humane society so the rats, hamsters, and rabbits/guinea pigs always have nice cages to live in. But like you said, to each their own lol.

What cage model do you own? Is it a ferret cage or a rat cage? You know, I have seen in a lot of pictures that my Martins cage looks different than others who supposedly have the same cage as I do. I notice that their doors have stuff on the sides of them, whereas mine didn't. Hrmm.........I think I got gipped.

[lv4dogs]

Originally posted by luckies4me
Thanks!!! I don't have all my cages pictured, and when I took those pics they had like no toys in there lol.


That black cage is the R695. It's the only one I have experience with, so the others may just be better quality, I don't know. But for what I paid for it, to be so flimsy (I mean, you can bend it with your hands, doesn't sound like a quality poduct does it?) I really am dissapointed with the company. If you ever try a Quality Cage you would never go back to Martins. They are heavy duty Quality cages, hence their name. They are also a great company because they reguarly donate to my local humane society so the rats, hamsters, and rabbits/guinea pigs always have nice cages to live in. But like you said, to each their own lol.

What cage model do you own? Is it a ferret cage or a rat cage? You know, I have seen in a lot of pictures that my Martins cage looks different than others who supposedly have the same cage as I do. I notice that their doors have stuff on the sides of them, whereas mine didn't. Hrmm.........I think I got gipped.

i just might have to give quality cages a try! What humane society do they donate to? (Florence no kill?? love it there!) I lived in Eugene twice & will hopefully return one day SOON!!!! It is my favorite place i have ever visited! Do you have any pics of your quality cages?

i cant remember what model cage i have but it is supposed to be a ferret cage, maybe thats why mine seems like it might be better quality than yours

[luckies4me]

They donated 2,000 dollars worth of cages to Greenhill Humane Society. They were custom made and SO nice! I wanted one so bad lol.

I don't have pics of my Quality cages right now, no. I only have one right now, and it's a tank topper. But I had one of their chin cages, and it was 6 years old and absolutely FANTASTIC! It wasn't even coated and it never rusted and it didn't even soak in urine smell. My tank topper doesn't even soak in the urine smell for some reason. I don't know if it's a different wire they use or what.

They also make great safe running wheels too, that are powder coated and they last ages. This one I have is about three years old, and it's great. However, they are expensive. My wheel cost $35 dollars.


If you ever visit here again let me know. We can go to Lone Pine Farms!!! I think you mentioned you used to get your food there?

[lv4dogs]

If you ever visit here again let me know. We can go to Lone Pine Farms!!! I think you mentioned you used to get your food there?

yes i would love go there & get to meet you. I did get food there I love it, although i discovered it only a few short months before my departure and only got to visit a few times!

I should be getting a settlement towards summer/fall for a car accident a month ago so im hoping to buy a house in eugene or maybe a bit towards florence, or maybe towards cougar, well right in that area anyways. If i dont get enough to buy a house i will at least have enough to use as a down payment or pay for rent for a couple years (if i can find something that allows all my animals). Goodness it gets me all giddy just thinking about it LOL! I cant wait!!!!!