Cage Review: All Living Things "Rat Starter Kit"

Alright, so I ended up purchasing this cage because I am in the process of moving and I felt bad about keeping the rats in their small moving crate. So, this was on sale and the size was decent for my needs, and I figured that it would come in handy when using it for a quarantine cage in the future.

The kit includes a water bottle, plastic food dish, small bag of paper bedding, a flat running wheel, a plastic-y hammock, a wooden chew kabob, and a bag of All Living Things Rat & Mouse Food. I personally wouldn't recommend using the food as a main food, but you can keep it as extra or as emergency food. The hammock is plastic feeling, so I'm not sure if I'll leave it in the cage because I don't want the rats to chew it up and ingest any plastic.

The kabob is alright, I've bought the same one before and the girls just ended up chewing the middle bar so all the pieces just fell off.

The reason that I say I wouldn't use the food is because I much prefer Oxbow. I don't like to give my rats food that has a lot of other things in it because then they can pick and choose what they want, and that's never really good because they will often leave the good stuff for them uneaten and just eat the sweeter things. Also, the first ingredient is ground corn. That's a big turn off for me. And there's dried corn in the food, which you shouldn't feed to rats. So if you are going to use this, make sure to pick out and of the dried corn kernels that are in the bowl.

Getting a food bowl is nice as a spare but I prefer to use ceramic bowls because they are harder to tip over and they are less likely to chew on the ceramic. One of my rats looooves to chew on plastic, so I probably won't ever bother trying to use the bowl. The water bottle is alright, it doesn't leak much (so far), and the holder keeps it in place -- it doesn't get moved around. I don't know if I will use the wheel because there isn't much room in the bottom of the cage, and I don't think my girls would use it. Again it's plastic so it has a high chance of being chewed!

The size of the cage itself is alright. I wouldn't keep six rats in it for a long time, but for a temporary house it's a decent size. The cage itself is fairly easy to assemble, however getting the ladders on and the shelves in place was a big pain. Also, the ladders are terrible; the rats have a hard time climbing up them as they are too slippery, even with the little grips it has on them. So they just climb the sides of the cage to get to where they want. Again, it's all plastic so I'm not sure how well it will hold up against Iris, the rat who loves plastic. It has three doors, two on the front and one on the top of the cage. They lock easily and are very easy to open, so they're nice. They are just a little small so it's hard to get some larger things inside of the cage.

Overall rating: 6

Ease of assembly: 4

Quality of cage: 5

Quality of items included: 3