Savic Freddy 2 Max Cage

This is the WORST designed animal cage we have ever had the misfortune of owning. We bought this cage from pets at home, rather than amazon, over a year ago, but to prevent people shelling out over 100 quid just to experience the daily misery that is owning this poorly designed animal prison I thought I would review here.We originally had 2 baby rats in this cage. One was savage and one lovely. The single large front opening door to this cage means that if you have 2, not yet domesticated baby rats trying to escape, you might lose one of them. We lost the savage one early on, she hasn’t been seen since. From past rodent based experience, a range of entrances for different needs is helpful. A single door big enough to pass a large cat through not so helpful, it’s very difficult to police the exit while you’re cleaning/ topping up the feed bowl etc, particularly if you have a bitey one.Our previous cage had a fully opening top for cleaning, a smaller door within that top for retrieving the rat from the upper levels and a door in the side at the lower level. The person who designed that cage had clearly owned and fed and cleaned a rodent at some point, the person who designed this cage evidently just heard that it was possible to keep small animals in cages and decided they’d heard enough to design this monstrosity.The single door is problematic if you have a new animal that doesn’t yet know the benefit of spending time with you. With this huge cage and its single door (rather than calmly locating the animal, choosing the most appropriate door and calmly grabbing it when it least expects it) you will need to insert your arm up to the elbow and then chase your new pet around and around the cage bending your arm in bizarre ways to reach the corners. This does not lead to good first impressions between you and your rat. I had rats as a child and they were tame as you like. This is my 7 year olds second (or third depending if you count the missing one) rat. the first one, in the old cage, was his best friend. This one, presumably terrified by her early experiences of removal from this cage, has become a cage rat. She doesn’t come out. She likes a tickle and will sit on the door for food but proper handling is too stressful for her as there is no way to remove her and make her feel secure unless she positions her self perfectly and stays put so we gave up. We’ve never had this before and it’s very sad for my son.Lastly the door situation makes cleaning a chore. In the old cage I would open the top and wipe down all the platforms and toys every other day. Once a week I would do a full clean and I could also do this via the top or by dismantling the whole thing.You cannot clean this cage like that, wiping down the platforms requires you to bend your arm like a contortionist, jamming your forearm against various rat wee soaked surfaces until you feel like you must shower immediately upon finishing the operation. All the while you are doing this you must remember to police the door for your escaping rat, cos while the door is too awkwardly positioned for you to effectively clean it’s still plenty big enough to let your creature escape.The cage must be fully dismantled for cleaning. Because there is no door large enough for all the parts to pass through. You have to let the platforms drop down (with pet in situ if, like ours, it is too traumatised to leave) then lift the whole thing apart. Then when reassembling you have to perform a cirque de soleil act to balance the platforms on one hand while reaching around the cage to blindly screw the fastenings in.TLDR:- it’s rubbish. Don’t waste your money If I could give no stars I would.

Good cage, but without a roof hatch it makes things quite tricky.

This is a good size cage for 3 or 4 rats and is well made. The only down-side is the badly designed door. Both the size of the door and its position make access into the cage difficult. That aside, it's a decent cage, although a little pricey.

This cage is absolutely HUGE!!! It does come already made so be warned but I wouldn't have liked to put it together anyway. Good quality accessories. Access door is a good size but you will have to fit platforms through bottom of cage rather that through door as they're too big. It's easy enough though and I managed to do this alone. Lock on door is brilliant too as rats sometimes work out how to push open other types. Water bottle is big (600ml) and works well but I have brought 2 smaller ones instead and will keep it as a spare.

I thought this cage would turn out to be quite good having had a Savic in the past. Unfortunately it is very difficult to clean. Having only one door at the front and the cage being so high makes it almost impossible for one person to remove the trays or wash them off in situ. A hammock is very difficult to fix too. The single door prevents access from doing this even when the cage part is removed from the base. It's just too high to reach. I thought the single door would be big enough to allow this, but it isn't and is too small. The ladders are flimsy and a bit slippery and move about due to inadequate fixing to the shelves and the Perspex tube keeps coming apart. The yellow rings do not fit tight enough around the tube to keep it together.The design could be improved by more secure fixings on the ladders (whose surface should be less shiny) and an extra door on the top of the cage. Tighter fittings on the Perspex tube would also help.A few good points - the base is easy to clean and difficult for rats to nibble and the Sputnik is well loved. The bars are sturdy and the cage is easy to move with the carrying handles. The shelves are very easy to fit (if you can reach them).On the whole though, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have exceptionally long arms!

Good sized cage for two rats and the base is nice and deep so saves mess but the single door really lets the cage down! It is really awkward to hang hammocks, attache shelves, clean shelves etc. Wouldn't buy another one unless they put a door on the top.

Very good cage, arrived fully assembled. Only drawback I've found is the door is a bit small relative to the size of the cage. Same sized door as on the standard freddy cage.

Well made cage with plenty of room for two or three rats. Metalwork is coated and bottom tray deep so no bedding kicked out. Front opening door of a reasonable size (though all cages seem to have doors that could be bigger) but no door in the top so plenty of space to hang hammocks etc. Overall a good quality cage.