As promised, I bought the hammy’s some new toys – as if they weren’t spoilt enough!
I shall post about each toy in turn over the next few days as I dont want to ramble on for too long on one post! 😛
The first toy I shall review/bitch about is the “Sammy’s Indoor/Outdoor Playpen”
At £15.99 from Pets at Home, its not cheap and certainly not exactly value for money!
They are all attached to form a relatively large playpen for your pet to exercise in.
Note: Its only suitable for mice, hamsters and apparently gerbils however by the end of this post you will know why I highly doubt any rodent, a gerbil especially, would enjoy this toy.
When put all together, it does create quite a lot of floor space for hamsters to run around in without fearing escape!
I tend to think its quite a good idea because its more interactive than letting them run around in a ball and gives them a change of scenery aswell.
So we put a few toys and treats in the pen and put Eve in to test it out.
She certainly appreciated the amount of space she had to run around however seemed to be more interested in running along the edge of the bars than play with any of the new toys I had spent lots of money on!!!
Despite her favouring her freedom over the new toys, it was nice to watch her exploring and getting acquainted with us owners.
Sorry for the crappy photo quality in this picture; I’ll blame the lighting which wasn’t very good so adjusting the brightness afterwards has left it looking pretty naff.
After about 5 minutes of sniffing the floor and nibbling the carpet she turned her attention to escaping.
As we have discovered Eve likes to climb stuff.
But we don’t need to worry as shes smaller than an iPhone and there’s no chance of her climbing over 9 inch high wall is there…
…….
………….
WRONG!!!
In her first attempt, she scaled the bars and would have escaped into the big wide world had I not been sat there snapping away!
Now Eve is TINY and these bars are supposed to keep all sized hamsters in??? 
Mice and gerbils are much more nimble than hamsters and would have absolutely no problem climbing out of its so the chances of escape must be nearly 100%
I now understand why the phrase “Do not leave pet unattended” is slapped across the packaging 6 times!
For the novelty, 8 out of 10
but for sheer practicality and purpose a big fat ZERO out of 10.
For £15.99 I would expect a little more than a pointless waste of metal….
Don’t waste your money people!
What do you think??? Do you own one? Were you thinking of buying one even??? Let me know 😀
xx
HamsterDiaries 
She reminds me of the hamsters I had, they would to the same. Even worse, one was able to break out of it’s cage! I had a cage with bars, with a hatch with a regular click system. One was able to open the hatch himself! I had to put a brick on top to keep him from escaping. (I gave my hamster to a friend later because my mom became allergic. She forgot to put the brick ontop, and the hamster escaped, never to be found again 😦 )
Haha she definitely would escape if it wasn’t for the 2 stiff clips holding it down. Even so, she’s more of a climber than a nibbler which is definitely a quiter hobby 😛
Oh dear. Bingo likes climbing things for some reason but even he is impressed by Eve’s skillful ascent! 🙂
Looks like that is not going down well. Our Mummy likes to say all the best toys are homemade but whee think she just wants to avoid the risk of buying something whee might not like. Looking forward to reading about more hammy toys.
Nibbles, Nutty, Bingo & Buddy
xxxx
yes fabbaluss idea I think GPs – making something if possible may well solve this problem. Your mummy is clearly far more talented and creative than I am!
Wow, I have never actually considered homemade toys – what do you guys suggest?!?! Im kinda a crafty person anyways so totally up for making something 😀
Cardboard box mazes, hidie houses made of cereal boxes, a tube stuffed with treats. Anything really. Our favourite is an old brown paper primark bag filled with shredded paper and bits of grape!
xxxx
Awwwwesome! Im collecting a few bits and pieces so gunna hopefully mash something together for them eventually.
I know with my old hamsters, we used used up kitchen rolls as tunnels 😀
OH MY GOD SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE’S DOING PULL UPS TRAINING FOR BODY BUILDING! haha! As soon as I saw those pics I started humming Eye Of The Tiger. GO EVE! hahahaaaaaa so funny 😀
That’s obviously a bitch-worthy purchase but the concept is fantastic – so much more freedom (too much if LEFT UNATTENDED jeez) to play and exercise.
Will you return this useless item?
And I think the pigglies have a brilliant idea, can you invent something similar yourself?
That’s actually so funny u should say about eye of the tiger because my review of the hamster wheel has an accompanying video with eye of the tiger – that post is to come 😀 hahaha your pyschic !!! 😛
I won’t return it but I’m thinking of a few ideas to convert it into a worthy toy perhaps. I too loved the idea but sadly I have some pretty curious hamsters and this product is just not for them 😛
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Whoever thought using wires to create a playpen wasn’t very bright. Considering I’ve seen hamster climb off glass tanks by using the nearby water bottle (all Ninja-style, like when people climb up the corners of the walls by extending their arms and feet), something with less grip would be needed.
They’d have had better luck making one that was all-solid, like making one from a bunch of aluminum or hard plastic walls duct taped together.
Exactly! Eve didn’t even flex, it was no trouble at all climbing them bars! you would have thought they had tested this on hamsters before selling it – I can’t imagine they did knowing how quickly this baby hamster managed to escape.
In my next few posts I’m planning on recycling some of the rubbishy toys into new worth-while toys (showing off a bit of creativity me thinks) haha thanks for reading:D
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Got this myself. Totally useless without supervision UNTIL I slit open some plastic document holders and sellotaped them over the panels. Now Heston cant climb them. Looks a little naf but the hammy can still see out of the plastic, and he’s so far never tried to eat it either.
You are a genius! I couldnt fathom a way to stop them climbing up as yet. Just me prodding them when they got to the top and watching them shuffle back to the floor. They wouldnt give up though and it turned into an exhaustive task watching them constantly
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