Great Pet Shop! 'The Big Pet Store' in Halesowen

[Jaffacake]

I've been thinking about how many negative threads and comments I see on here about Pet Shops (quite rightly, some are horrible!) and I was thinking that the good ones really deserve some credit too

The Big Pet Store is in Halesowen near lots of big towns and cities including Birmingham, Stourbridge, Kidderminster. It is epic!

http://www.thebigpetstore.co.uk/index.php?webpage=smallanimals

I'd been searching for a 6' hutch for my bunny for AGES and was having no luck. I didn't like the Pets at Home one and I didn't like the idea of getting it from there anyway, no other pets shops had anything near big enough except for one which looked like it was two smaller hutches stuck together, and the ones online were either far out of my price range or looked poorly made with too little covered at the front, no lifting roof, no side doors etc. etc. :evil:

I ended up going to stay with my Grandpa in Bromsgrove to get him to help me design my own hutch and pick materials. We ended up totally it up at £200 which is a lot of money for me, but I was willing to spend it. He suggested we look at this Pet Shop before we bought the materials and it turned out perfectly! We found an ex display 6' 2' 2' hutch with a same sized run underneath (my bunnies have free range for daylight hours all day every day but Christmas afternoon) for an amazing £80!! There were other ex display hutches for the same price, as well as lots of other flat pack hutches and ALL of them that I could see were RWA standard, most with runs attached. :thumb:

I went inside and the place is stacked floor to ceiling with toys, runs, good quality food, fly strike treatment, and much more! And the best part? The only animals sold were fish (along side decent sized tanks).

So I went to the guy and asked him to reserve the hutch as it didn't fit in the car. I mentioned that I had been searching for a decent hutch for months and couldn't believe I'd found one! Even if it was nearly an hour from my house! He started on a full on rant about how he was horrified by some of these cages that are sold for rabbits, how he works with the RWA and how all his hutches are RWA standard. He said he had become sick of people buying animals from his shop and then buying the cages elsewhere so they could get them smaller and cheaper and so he stopped selling animals. He said other pet shops say 'if we didn't sell the smaller hutches the customers would just get them elsewhere!' but he thinks that if all the pet shops flat out refused to sell smaller hutches then people would have to buy the bigger ones!

Then when I mentioned my Foxie, he said 'rabbits really should have a friend you know' and handed me a leaflet for a local rabbit rescue, and started raving about how wonderful they are... :lol: (He does have a rescue rabbit friend now )

There were RWA, Flystrike, and Rescue leaflets by the till and there was information about what animals need around the store. The staff were friendly, approachable and full of knowledge.

Basically it was wonderful =P And I really wish that more Pet Shop Owners thought that way. I thought that nasty stores deserve to be named and shamed, but the good ones definitely deserve a shout out too!

 

[UsagiYojimbo]

Wow!!! Thanks I'll be checking them out for sure :thumb: x

 

[UsagiYojimbo]

When do you get your hutch?? Can you take a photo I'd like to see what kind of quality they are please?!

It's a bit far for me to just go to have a look around

X

 

[Jaffacake]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/95220398@N08/8671890579/in/photostream

That's a photo of it. I can take some pics from inside this weekend if you want?

It has thick, strong bars instead of Mesh which is great! The wood on the top half of the hutch is good quality and thick. The wood sheet at the back of the run is just plywood so we braced it with metal corners to make it stronger. I also painted my own wood preserver over the top (used Ronseal as was told by RWA that that was ok, but Cuprinol wasn't) but some of them were already preserved. They had most of the hutches in the back flat-pack, with display hutches out the front. I could've just taken it home with me then if we had enough space, but I ended up picking it up a couple of days later. It only just fit in our 7 seater fully assembled! I just double checked the measurements and it is exactly 6' long, 2' wide but it is just under 2' in height in each of the other sections.

Basically I think they are pretty good =] Especially for the money. They did have quite a few different brands of hutch too. Mine is Summer Meadows. If you rang them up they could tell you the brands and you could do some research before?

 

[Tamsin]

It looks good, and thanks for telling up about the pet shop. You're right, we should give the ones that are doing the right things credit!

 

[BB Mommy]

Is that the store that is by Macro?

 

[yaretzi]

The shop sounds good, but the 'strong bars' on the front of the hutch are not suitable. A fox/cat/dog could easily put their paw in and scratch your bunny through that. The mesh size needs to be 1 x 1 inch or smaller to be safe from predators. Nice size, but not appropriate sadly. Being scratched by a cat or a fox can easily kill a rabbit from shock or infection.

 

[Jaffacake]

Yes it is reasonably near Macro =] Have you been?

The gap is only 1'', there is a 2' depth and 2' covered on all sides in the top half of the hutch. We have since placed a 'cat den' in the bottom half of the run so they have hiding places down there and one corner is now covered on all sides to give more shelter from bad weather. I have never seen a fox anywhere near my house, I live in the suburbs of a town and I haven't even seen any urban foxes nearby. A fox wouldn't be able to get to them unless we had an enormous amount of bad luck, and if that happened we could just as easily lose them during the day when they have free range time.

We have two cats, our two rabbits are very cat confident to say the least so a cat would never scare them and they would probably take on any cat that tried to hurt them. They groom my two cats and the cats groom them- especially Foxie who was originally a house bunny. He deliberately runs up to our youngest cat at flops out next to her, best of friends . Because we have two cats other animals stay out of the garden. But once again, a cat would be more likely (or unlikely in this case) to attack them during the day then when they are in a secure raised hutch with strong bars and shelter.

I'd rather have meld than thin chicken wire type covering which many are.

The end

Back to topic, many of the hutches there have different meld and wire types.

 

[yaretzi]

Yes it is reasonably near Macro =] Have you been?

The gap is only 1'', there is a 2' depth and 2' covered on all sides in the top half of the hutch. We have since placed a 'cat den' in the bottom half of the run so they have hiding places down there and one corner is now covered on all sides to give more shelter from bad weather. I have never seen a fox anywhere near my house, I live in the suburbs of a town and I haven't even seen any urban foxes nearby. A fox wouldn't be able to get to them unless we had an enormous amount of bad luck, and if that happened we could just as easily lose them during the day when they have free range time.

We have two cats, our two rabbits are very cat confident to say the least so a cat would never scare them and they would probably take on any cat that tried to hurt them. They groom my two cats and the cats groom them- especially Foxie who was originally a house bunny. He deliberately runs up to our youngest cat at flops out next to her, best of friends . Because we have two cats other animals stay out of the garden. But once again, a cat would be more likely (or unlikely in this case) to attack them during the day then when they are in a secure raised hutch with strong bars and shelter.

I'd rather have meld than thin chicken wire type covering which many are.

The end

Back to topic, many of the hutches there have different meld and wire types.

Meld is indeed safer than chicken wire ... At least things can't nibble their way into a welded mesh hutch like they can with chicken wire, eek! Just wanted to alert you to the fact that the bar spacing is too big to be safe from predators, but if you don't mind taking the (albeit small) risk then that's fine ! Foxes are everywhere though - just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. The first time many people see a fox is when their animals are attacked, unfortunately. They cover 100% of England. Perhaps if you ever get concerned about the gap you could mesh over it ?

 

[Hesperus]

Meld is indeed safer than chicken wire ... At least things can't nibble their way into a welded mesh hutch like they can with chicken wire, eek! Just wanted to alert you to the fact that the bar spacing is too big to be safe from predators, but if you don't mind taking the (albeit small) risk then that's fine ! Foxes are everywhere though - just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. The first time many people see a fox is when their animals are attacked, unfortunately. They cover 100% of England. Perhaps if you ever get concerned about the gap you could mesh over it ?

It's a lovely hutch! On the topic of wire, you could always just add an extra wire (not chicken, the thicker stuff, sorry I don't know what it's called) across yourself that matches, rather than meshing all over the top. Just to bring the gap down to 1 inch rather than 2.

My areas full of foxes, Harry's owners before me said a fox tried to pull his leg out of his hutch through a gap

 

[Jaffacake]

It's a lovely hutch! On the topic of wire, you could always just add an extra wire (not chicken, the thicker stuff, sorry I don't know what it's called) across yourself that matches, rather than meshing all over the top. Just to bring the gap down to 1 inch rather than 2.

My areas full of foxes, Harry's owners before me said a fox tried to pull his leg out of his hutch through a gap

That's a good idea! Thanks

 

[Oompa-Loompa]

That's great! The pet shops here are all dreadful

 

[Mirth]

I wish more shops do that. That place sounds great! Is the guy single and young do you know? Actually I wonder if he's on the forums, since he sounds like one of us :lol::lol:

Oooh well if I can't get into a studio, I know where I want to work :lol:

 

[Lady Logamorph]

Sounds great and if I ever head down that way I will be sure to pop in and have a look!