Habitrail is a brand name for a

hamster cage A hamster cage is a cage designed to house a hamster or hamsters. Hamster cages need to be at least 1524 cm2 (600 in2) of floor space or bigger, although many experts such as Gernot Kuhnen recommend that hamsters thrive with larger cage sizes. ...

made by the

Hagen Hagen () is the Largest cities in Germany, 41st-largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany. The municipality is located in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the R ...

corporation. It is a series of translucent plastic tubes and "houses" for use in home

terrariums A vivarium (Latin, literally for "place of life"; plural: ''vivaria'' or ''vivariums'') is an area, usually enclosed, for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research. Water-based vivaria may have open tops providing they a ...

, designed specially for

hamster Hamsters are rodents (order Rodentia) belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae, which contains 19 species classified in seven genera.Fox, Sue. 2006. ''Hamsters''. T.F.H. Publications Inc. They have become established as popular small pets. The b ...

s. The design of the Habitrail is modular and can be configured however the owner likes, as well as disassembled for cleaning. The Habitrail is meant to mimic the

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

of the animal in question, usually a

warren A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval Angl ...

, or series of

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

s. The mascot for Habitrail is "Herbie the Hamster", who even has a video game based on him called ''

Habitrail Hamster Ball Habitrail is a brand name for a hamster cage made by the Rolf C. Hagen Group, Hagen corporation. It is a series of translucent plastic tubes and "houses" for use in home terrariums, designed specially for hamsters. The design of the Habitrail is m ...

'' produced by Data Design Interactive in 2005 and released for the

PS2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia o ...

, and the PC.

Reception

Habitrails are rather small. This tends to be a problem for

Syrian hamster The golden hamster or Syrian hamster (''Mesocricetus auratus'') is a rodent belonging to the hamster subfamily, Cricetinae. Their natural geographical range is in an arid region of northern Syria and southern Turkey. Their numbers have been d ...

s, who often get lodged in the tubes, particularly those that are pregnant. Conversely, Habitrails tend to be too large to work well for dwarf hamsters, such as the Roborovski and White Russian types, as they can not climb up the tube. In response, the Rolf C. Hagen Corp. introduced two new housings in 2007: the Habitrail OVO, which featured a larger modular design that also made it easier to observe hamsters and maintain their housing, and a similar cage with narrower tubes designed for dwarfs. The wheel(s) that come with the Habitrail OVO cage have three long holes that line the middle of the wheel where the hamster is to run; Habitrail has stated that the holes are to allow waste to drop through, but the legs of hamsters (especially the dwarfs) tend to fall into the holes. The high & smooth stairs leading to the feeding dish tend to be difficult for smaller hamsters to negotiate.

Popular usage

The word "habitrail" is also used in reference to enclosed pedestrian walkways, particularly those with few or no side branches, offering no personal choice of route, and those interconnecting unpleasant workplaces such as factories and office buildings. The Habitrail has become such a long-running institution that the name has almost become a generic word for any maze-like tubular structure: for example, "

habitrail Habitrail is a brand name for a hamster cage made by the Hagen corporation. It is a series of translucent plastic tubes and "houses" for use in home terrariums, designed specially for hamsters. The design of the Habitrail is modular and can be con ...

" is a common term for the raised wire-form ball guide in a pinball machine.

References

External links

* {{official, https://www.habitrail.com
Hagen ... for pets (homepage)
Buildings and structures used to confine animals Mazes Hamster equipment