Falco 100 or Eco Living World Habitat

[nicky]

Hi everyone. Would it be a bad idea to get an enclosure with a caged top when you have cats? Looking to get two gerbils and I would like a large enclosure for them. I’ve seen the Falco 100 enclosure which measures 100 x 50 x 75 and will be quite heavy as it has a glass tank at the bottom so I don’t think it could be tipped over, but I’m wondering if cats could still try and get to them through the bars? Or there is also the Eco Habitat (100 x 60 x 60) which I think may work better as none of it is ‘open’. Are gerbils worried about having an ‘open’ area at the top as I know they mainly enjoy burrowing and both these enclosures have a deep glass area (50-60cm). Both of these enclosures seem to be out of stock but I’ve seen them both for sale on FB Marketplace near me. We have two cats and I don’t know how they’re going to react to them, hopefully they’ll just watch them 🤞 We could keep the door closed to the room they will be in but not sure how practical this will be all day every day. Thank you

[londongerbils]

Hi!

Both look great. I don’t have cats, but I would opt for the eco habitat because if the gerbils’ tails accidentally hang out through the bars of the Falco, I wouldn’t trust a cat with that temptation!

[LilyandDaisy]

The Eco Habitat is high enough that you can have a good depth of bedding plus extra height for climbing, platforms, a wheel etc. The lid of the Eco Habitat does have wide gaps and a couple of large holes that a small cat's paw (or a gerbil, for that matter) could fit through, so you will need to either staple some mesh over it or make a new lid. It also has some 1cm holes in the acrylic at the sides but I glued acrylic sheets over them for deeper bedding, which would also keep cats from poking their claws through.

I have a mesh (6mm mesh) topper for my Eco Habitat and while I don't have cats, I think the fine mesh is safer than bars, if you did want to have a topper, but it's really fine without.

[yeti218]

You may end up wanting to keep the door to the gerbil room closed more often depending on how the gerbils and cats feel about each other.

I tried to see how my dog would deal with the gerbils and he found them way too exciting, which terrified the gerbils.

Now hes not usually allowed in the small pet room. I set up a baby gate at the doorway so I can leave the main door open for airflow if i want and he still cant get to them.

I have heard some gerbils dont mind cats so much, but some get pretty freaked out if a predator is staring at them.

[teambenji543]

I agree with Yeti218. My dog goes CRAZY whenever he sees the gerbils! So now he's not allowed in my brothers room (where our gerbils are) unsupervised.