Monday, June 2, 2014

Product Review: Prevue Hendryx Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel

Today we're reviewing Prevue Hendryx's Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel. This is a company I don't believe we've ever tried products from before, which always makes us a little nervous. We generally trust Oxbow products; we tend to like them, and even on the rare occasion we're not crazy about an Oxbow product, we at least trust them not to put anything in their products that guinea pigs obviously shouldn't have (like peanuts). But who the heck is Prevue Hendryx? We've only seen them on Amazon.com, never in pet stores. According to their website, however, "Prevue Pet Products, Inc. is the largest and oldest manufacturer of pet cages, toys and accessories in the world today, dating back to 1869." But does being around for a long time mean they know how to make good guinea pig products? Let's find out!

The description on the front of this product says: "A natural woven grass activity center for your small animal. Satisfies their natural instincts to burrow, explore and nest." As we've mentioned before, it always makes us a little nervous when products are not guinea pig-specific. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with a product that's designed for "small animals", but it does raise red flags that it might not be appropriate in terms of size, nutrition, and so on.

The size of the product is approximately 13.5"L by 6" diameter, which should be enough for us to fit through.

Looks like we've got a new product to review.
Do we want to chew on it?
No, let's crawl through it instead!
We had fun crawling through this product, and we were just about to give it a positive review, when we decided we should double-check the materials, just to be on the safe side. The materials listed in this product are: "couch grass 98%; plant cane 1%; burlap 5%; sisal rope 5%." Couch grass seems to be finePlant cane appears to be "A stalk or shoot of sugar cane," and while you shouldn't feed sugar cane by itself to guinea pigs (too much sugar, as you might expect), we're guessing this might be okay in this product since it's only 1%. Some people have expressed concern about sisal rope as well, saying it could unravel after chewing, although we're not clear why that's a concern. (Perhaps because we might eat it afterwards?) Burlap, however, turns out to be bad news: "The danger is that it will wad up in their digestive tracts and cause a blockage." (This is probably also why the sisal rope unraveling was a concern.) The humans quickly took this thing away from us, considering themselves lucky that we didn't eat any burlap. Just to be on the safe side, they're going to watch us to make sure we're eating and pooping normally.

Although the humans clearly should have done more research before letting us try this thing, I think they feel bad enough as it is, so we'll let them off the hook. Prevue Hendryx, on the other hand, should be ashamed of themselves. You've been in business since 1869, and still don't know what's safe to put in guinea pig products? We give Prevue Hendryx's Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel 1/5 stars.

4 comments:

  1. Looks fun! Seems like mostly the materials are the bad things! could you review the Super Pet Perfect Chews for Guinea Pigs item? we own it but we don't know if our humans want to put it down in our cage yet. It looks kind of fun. could you also review the Ware Hand Woven Willow Twig Tunnel Small Pet Hideout? Plus, a question. Our owner wants to ask it. We have a wooden pigloo for our guinea pigs. We have noticed something. Ashley and Wendy poop in a big pile there. why might that be?

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    1. Yes, this could have been a good product if only the company didn't use burlap, and sisal rope (and sugar cane to a much lesser extent).

      We'll try keep your product recommendations in mind the next time we have our humans shop for us. Thanks for the suggestions!

      As for the poop pile question, our guess is that it's because pigloos are great places to hang out and feel safe, so piggies are inclined to spend a lot of time in them. When you spend a lot of time in them, you have to poop. It might be in one big pile because we'll often turn our head towards the pigloo opening to keep an eye on what's going on, while our backsides face the back of the pigloo. Is the poop pile in the back of the pigloo rather than the front?

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  2. it's in the back, and they don't usually spend a lot of time in there.

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  3. I bought this cause my guinea pig adores the woven grass balls he has. (His brother doesn't really care) before I saw this review. Luckily the burlap comes off by cutting and unwinding the rope, without damaging the structure of the tunnel itself!

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