John Hopewell Cage

[worthym]

Ooooh am I happy this week I finally managed to scrape together the pennies for a new cage for my 3 degus, Alvaro, Chucho and Sancho.
I bought the cage from John Hopewell - so i'd best put the link for all those interested www.johnhopewell.co.uk/
The cage is the "giant" degu/rat cage. It has a tray inside the cage, that is deeper than the ordinary Chinchilla cage trays at about 4" deep. This slides out for cleaning.
There is also a hay rack, which you can specify for the degu cages.
It comes with 3 shelves, two short ones(widthways) and a longer one (lengthways).
It has two doors - which are both quite large, and allow the degus to come out easily to see me.
I ordered the cage with a stand on castors, which makes it easy to move around for cleaning under it, where they kick bedding and food etc out of the cage.
All in all, with delivery, the cage (which is handmade to order) cost £160.00.
I will post some pics shortly of the new cage. The degus seem to be far happier in the new cage, and are running and jumping and climbing and no longer chewing the bars!!
I'm chuffed to bits and would highly recommend these cages. ;D

[themoosevodka]

those cages are great! i'm sure your degus will love it ;Dit's so awesome to see how much everyone here cares about thier pets!

[Hanlou]

Hi. I've had a look at those cages myself in preparation for when I (eventually) get some degus of my own.

I'd love to see a picture of them in action - so please do post a pic!!! You can slide perspex between th estand and the cage too to prevent mess - which I thought sounded like a brilliant idea!! ;D

Am looking forward to see what you think of it.... John's lovely to 'speak' to (via e-mail!) isn't he? The wheels he makes are brilliant too. Well worth the money I think.

[worthym]

Pictures - finally got my camera to work, so I hope you're all ready for this....

On arrival



Unwrapped



Deep slide out tray for easy cleaning, and NO wire floor ;D



Hay rack - can be specified with a degu cage



Degus installed - this gives a good idea to the size of the cage



Degu enjoying the hay rack



Sharing a shelf - plenty of room



The bottom of the cage with "sandbath" ( they use it as a larder storing everything in it lol )



Branch and rope - more toys and fun to come



On landing...



Ok, ok, I'll leave you in peace now



Hope you enjoy these pics - I couldn't get all three in the same shot at once, but will try and take some more pics in the future. My next aim is to make a hammock for them, which will go across the top, sort of in the middle.

[Hanlou]

Wow!! Thanks very, very much for those pics!

It looks really strong and it's h-u-g-e!!

Does the mesh 'feel' sturdy? The tray looks fantastic too. Ooh - I do like that!

Great pics! What do your degus think of it then? Bet they're 'dead chuffed'! Bless.... they're so gorgeous.....

[Sunshinemeg]

The pics look brilliant. I hope to get one of those cages when I move house again next year and have some more space. But for now my boys have to stay put. Anyway, that was off topic a bit. The pics show how much space they have, and there is lots of potential to add more perches and such, anyone who reads my post reguarly will know I am a great fan of the Leap 'N' Ledge wooden shelves, and have 6 in my own cage!! Anyway, with your cage I can see you can add lots like that, and like you have, ropes and everything. Truely a degu paradise! Can we lesser folk all send our degus on holiday to you? lol

meg ;D

[racingdegu]

Hi worthym. I`ve just joined the forum after lurking for a few months in the background and I had to let you know that I`m very jealous of your new cage! It makes my chinchilla cage look positively boring!

I may invest in one of these shortly after seeing your lovely photos and how suitable this cage is for degus and the fact that it has the 4" inch pull out tray would make cleaning out so much easier. Thankyou for posting these photos for us all to see. I must say i`m tempted now.....

[themoosevodka]

oh my god it's beautiful!!!! those pics are amazing, if only they delivered to canada i hope your degus enjoy it!!


p.s. they can get on all the ledges without ladders? maybe i should take my ldder out then he only uses it occasionally.....

[worthym]

Thanks for all the lovely comments about the cage.
In answer to the questions :

Hanlou - The cage feels quite sturdy overall, but I do feel that the stand for it helps that, and that without the stand it would be a little more flexible. I would recommend the stand as well, for the ability to be able to move it around to clean around them, as they do kick a lot of bedding and food out of the cage.

Squeak - The degus have no problem getting from shelf to shelf. I was worried at first I must admit, I couldn't see how they were going to reach the highest shelf! But they have no problem jumping from shelf to shelf, and when they can't be bothered to jump, well, they can climb up instead

The guys really do love their new cage, and seem to be far happier in it. I will definitely be adding a few more bits to it, especially some of those leap 'n' ledges that you have mentioned Meg, although I don't want to overcrowd it, as part of the great thing is that they've got so much room.

Anyway, thanks again for all the nice comments

[Hanlou]

Thanks for the info!

It's certainly a lovely looking cage! I can't have degus atm, I will probably have to wait until I move out really in fact, but when I do I think I'd like a John Hopewell cage. But that could be a long, long way away yet.

Never mind. Thanks again for the pics - it's really helped me get an idea of what the cages are like, it's hard to tell from John's website pics.

[racingdegu]

Hi worthym. Can I ask please, when you pay for a cage over the phone from John Hopewell, how long does delivery take? Also, I notice the cage has two large doors, one above the other. Do you think these doors give enough access to reach the internal shelves for cleaning and/or replacing, as each shelf has screws holding it in place? I wondered too whether a cage this size might benefit from a few more shelves to allow the degus more options of sitting at one end of the cage or the other?

I really would like one of these for my two, but don`t want to rush into things until I`m sure they would truly benefit from having the extra height. (The cage they are in right now is the same length & width as your new cage, but the extra height would be a bonus!)

Thanks worthym and I hope I`m not asking too many questions!

[worthym]

The delivery on the cage didn't take long, it was less than a week I think, from ordering, to actual delivery, and you can specify the day. As each cage is handmade, I suppose it would depend how much work he was doing at the time, but I felt that the time between ordering and delivery was very reasonable.
The doors give quite good access, although I can see your point on this one. The shelves are quite firmly attached on all sides, but I'm sure you could state where you wanted them in the cage, and you can buy more on the website, so they could be preinstalled for you. In the case of taking them out, tbh the only one that might cause any issue I think would be the lengthways one, but I'm sure that would drop to the bottom of the cage quite easily for removal.
Cleaning wise, i find it easy to get round all the shelves to clean them, even though the doors aren't massive, and the pull out tray at the bottom is a god-send!!
The real bonus of the smaller doors, is that the degus can't all escape at once, I find them far easier to manage than I did with my old top opening cage. They now come out onto the cage door, and then onto me from there, which is great for handling them
Anyway, hope that answers your questions - feel free to ask as many as you like - I know its a big decision getting a new cage

[racingdegu]

Hi worthym. Thankyou for answering my questions! I wondered at the shelves being easily moveable as the chinchilla cage shelves in the cage I have at the moment (cage came with the degus as they were rehomed by me) are actually NAILED in place to a metal strip! So how on earth I am meant to get these out to replace them is anyones guess....
Anyway, I could have a few more shelves included as part of the cage set up I suppose, so that would be an option. I also like the fact that you mentioned the lower door dropping down for the degus to walk out onto! Trouble is, my female will love this because she would only be around 7" inched from the floor! She`s already an escape artist!

I bought a 12" inch wheel from John Hopewell just last week and they will NOT use it. So I will be forced to sell it for £10 less than I paid for it because they seem to prefer their old wheel.... So I`ll be looking to sell that soon for £30 (plus recorded postage of some kind) added. The wheel cost me £40 new and it has`nt even been used! Oh well.....I tried! So frustrating though...

[racingdegu]

Hi worthym. It`s me again! I would still love this cage for Cheech & Prinny and wondered what you think of it now that you have had it in your home now for a few weeks?

How large are the doors on this cage worthym? Does it have smaller doors on the sides of the cage for changing the shelves? And if you were replacing the shelves, do you undo the washers holding the shelves in place with an ordinary screwdriver?

Lastly, what holds the doors closed on these cages? I notice they are `drop down` doors? When you open the bottom door, would it act like a ramp to the floor? I know the stand is only six inches from the ground! My Prinny would think this was a great opportunity to go walkabout!

Sorry for all the questions worthym....