so many of you may or may not already know that PetSmart had a huge rebranding of their line
all living things which is now called full cheeks
with this new rebranding they also have come out with not one not two but three
hamster enclosures
so i figured i would look through these new enclosures with you guys and give you my honest thoughts and opinions on them
the first thing i do want to mention because in the past when i've talked about tiny tales and all living things
i have had people try to tell me that PetSmart does not own these brands
which in fact PetSmart does own these brands and this is public knowledge
tiny tails, all living things and full cheeks all are owned and trademarked by PetSmart
and this is also why you can only get these brands in PetSmart
this is also public knowledge you can find the trademark information online
here we can see that full cheeks is owned by PetSmart home office inc.
so PetSmart is fully responsible for creating these products
i do find the new name a little bit odd you can also find some humor in full cheeks um
i think it only works for hamsters personally because the only animal who actually stores
things in their cheeks is hamsters but that's just getting a little bit nitpicky
i don't really know why they decided to create an entire new brand and not just stick with all living things
it's possible that because their tiny tails and all living things brand has had a lot of
negativity towards it they're trying to move away from that by just having a new brand name
i'm also curious if they're going to continue to sell tiny tails enclosures
the first cage that we're going to take a look at is the full cheeks small pet quick clean apartment and it goes for $69.99 USD
the size that is listed on the box is 23.7 inches (60cm) long
18.1 inches (46cm) wide and 16.6 inches (42cm) high
now the first thing that i have noticed with
each of these cages we're going to look at is that suddenly PetSmart has decided that they're going to start including the square inches of
spacious accommodations on the box
so according to this box this enclosure has 393 square inches of floor space
i can't verify that because i'm not able to measure it in person
so we're just gonna have to go by that
now they've likely started adding square inches onto the box because let's be honest
PetSmart doesn't live under a rock i'm
quite sure they are aware of the different pet communities
and they may have noticed that in the hamster community in particular
people are constantly talking about total floor space which is good
but what they've lacked in doing is listening to the correct cage sizing
the next thing included inside of the enclosure is a wheel and it is 6.5 inches (16.5 cm)
i i don't understand why Petsmart can't seem to grasp the things
that are said in the hamster community
in all of these cages you will notice the product the model they're using inside of these enclosures is a syrian hamster
i'm going to insert a clip of what it looks like for a syrian hamster to run on a 6.5 inch (16.5 cm) wheel
as you can tell that looks incredibly painful
syrian hamsters are way too big for a 6.5 inch (16.5 cm) wheel
and that makes me question PetSmart's design team or the supposed vets that
are supposed to check over these products
have they ever held a syrian hamster? have they ever watched a syrian hamster run in these wheels? and if so
who in their right mind watches an animal whose back is completely curved and says yeah that's fine
*bonk*
not to mention you're not going to be able to use that wheel
and you actually don't have any other space to put in a proper wheel and this goes for dwarf
hamsters as well
next we have the pan depth
this is not something that is listed anywhere so i'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it's possibly 6 inches (15cm) deep
it says that it is a pull out base for easy convenient cleaning
but then you got this giant ramp right smack in the middle
so that you can't fill the base up all the way
so sure you could technically just remove that ramp and then fill the base all the way up
but because it is a pullout base i definitely can see how bedding would be able to just
fall out when your hamster is trying to burrow
you know what i'm gonna take back what i said it doesn't even look like a 6 inch base i think that might be a 5 inch (12.7cm)
and as we all know burrowing is super important for hamsters
this is a really great enrichment for them and they need deep substrate in order to create burrows
you can't create burrows in
this much bedding that's not a burrow that's just hiding underneath bedding
another thing that they include is the easy fill food dispenser
and in the image you can see it's just filled with like pellets
i think this is a overall a very lazy and terrible product for hamsters
this is just encouraging people to just fill up their hamsters food and that they never have to do anything else because they don't have to constantly feed them
your hamster's not getting any enrichment out of that feeder and it kind of looks like that
feeder only works with pellets i don't know if it works with seed mix but just feeding your
hamsters pellets is that's a terrible diet you're taking away enrichment from them it's
i it's a terrible product i'm sorry
next up we have the full cheeks small pet hamster town home
and this is going for $89.99 US dollars
the size on the box is 23.8 inches (60cm) long
by 14.3 inches (36cm) wide by 11.5 inches (29cm) tall wow
that is not tall at all that's interesting
so on the box for this enclosure they have it listed as having 389 square inches of floor space
but it seems that petsmart is including that top floor
plus the bottom
because if we do the simple basic math 23.8 times 14.3 that only gives you
340 square inches of floor space
so that is an extremely sneaky tactic of PetSmart to do
because in the hamster community we technically do not go around measuring every tiny platform and adding that into the floor space that's just not how it works
it adds for enrichment sure levels and platforms but it's not adding to the overall floor space
also does anybody else get this weird sense of like
i've seen that cage before somewhere
yeah because it oddly looks identical to the Ferplast Favola
like identical
literally copied and pasted this cage
which is quite interesting i don't know if Ferplast and PetSmart
partnered up or PetSmart just stole their idea maybe
another super odd thing to me is that you're gonna notice that the other enclosures
PetSmart has created multiple entrances they've got like one on the top one on the side and like
that pull out base
but this enclosure
they've only created
a top tiny
tiny door entrance
tiny
and then once again we don't know the pan depth size
but looking at the height
i'm gonna say that
it's probably only about 4 inches (10cm) deep
but then what makes it even worse
we got this hole again in the middle
and that is the dedicated space for the 6.5 inch (16.5cm)
wheel to go
so you can't even fill this entire base up because if you do that
the wheel isn't going to turn not that the wheel is suitable anyways but
it defeats the entire purpose of a deep base
and the last enclosure we have to look at is the full cheeks hamster startup dream home
going for $199.99 US dollars
and when you look at it in how much Canadian dollars that is it is
*can't breathe flabbergasted*
it's a lot
so the size listed on the box is 23.4 inches (62cm) long
19.5 inches (49.5cm) wide and 19 inches (48cm) tall
so on the box it claims
claims
to be 596 square inches of floor space so for a minute you're like wow
did PetSmart kind of finally make a bigger enclosure
but no once again they've kind of done a little sneaky twist there and it seems
that they've added that tiny little top level
because 23.4 times 19.5 would only give you 456 square inches of floor space
this enclosure kind of just looks like a larger version of the first enclosure that we saw
once again we've got the 6.5 inch (16.5cm) tiny wheel
i don't know why they keep including wheels they should just not include a wheel at all
it's not doing anyone any favors because you have to throw it away anyways
then we got the pan depth once again it's not mentioned how deep it is like the first one i'm
gonna give it to the benefit of the doubt i'll say it's probably 5-6 inches (12.7-15cm) deep
and while that's not exactly the most ideal depth it's definitely at least more than the previous
cages they've made in the past like the tiny tails ones who have a pan depth of 3 inches (7.6cm)
cha cha cha
while i can acknowledge that PetSmart has created these enclosures bigger than their normal cages
they still are too small and just not up to date
one out of three of these enclosures fit with the American hamster cage minimum which i personally
don't even follow anymore because i've found it still to be too small
there is quite literally no excuse for PetSmart to not know these things i know for a fact that their design team
looks through the hamster community this is why we are seeing the square inches suddenly pop
up on the box they've also been sent the tiny tails petition
that has *almost* over 70 000 signatures
multiple times
these cages have huge price tags for what you are getting and the largest enclosure that they sell
is likely to be the least purchased because of that hefty price tag
there are other brands that are triple the size of this enclosure for cheaper and in fact,
PetSmart actually sells a 40-gallon aquarium for only $109 US dollars
so something with more space and bedding depth and is going to be better suited for a hamster
is even cheaper than their specifically hamster made enclosure
i can almost guarantee that the price to make these enclosures is quite cheap
and the markup on them is just huge
now the reason that i think this is because if we take a look at the full cheeks small pet split level sanctuary
which is marketed towards guinea pigs and rabbits
this sells for a $189 US dollars
and it has an estimate of 1,700 square inches of floor space
so you are telling me a cage with almost four times the amount of space
is somehow cheaper
now unfortunately because their guinea pig and rabbit cages have such a large bar gap that a hamster can fit through
they usually aren't going to work for a hamster unless you are taking mesh and meshing it over
now my theory as to why it's so hard for PetSmart to make a large enclosure for hamsters
is because if they started making a let's say 900 square inch enclosure for hamsters
this means that they're also going to have to start making larger enclosures for rabbits and guinea pigs
because you can't make a 900 square inch hamster enclosure and then have a 1,000 square inch enclosure that is
meant for guinea pigs and rabbits people are going to start questioning you know why is a hamster need 900 square inches but then
rabbits and guinea pigs can go in the same sized enclosure that doesn't make sense they are a lot bigger
so PetSmart then would have to also create larger guinea pig and rabbit cages and
they don't want to do this i just i don't believe they don't-
they don't want to do this type of thing they don't want your pets to thrive
now obviously i've never designed or created a hamster cage to be
sold to the public
but i do not think it is that hard to create a suitably sized hamster enclosure
they could even make a large enclosure that is just flat packed and has to be built at home
this way you would save space in the shelves because flat packed obviously you can
have more
and i think the design team gets paid enough that they likely could come up with some sort of idea similar to this
NiteAngel, RodiPet and Living World Green have already shown that this is a possible idea
so those are my own thoughts and opinions on these enclosures
would i recommend somebody go out and buy these?
no, i think it is a complete waste of money for the amount of space and things that you're getting because the majority of these things
are not going to work out for the hamster anyways and you can put that money towards an actual cage
that is going to help your hamster thrive
let me know what your thoughts are on this entire topic below i'm very interested to hear what you guys think
so i will see you guys in my next video
bye