There is a lady who did an in-depth review of all the cages and for the Featherland cages she said one person ended up cutting through a bar and found that it was hollow and not solid. This lady contacted the company and was told they were solid. (Where is an icon scratching it's head, could not find one so you need to use your imagination.) A lot of people report having sharp edges but someone else ended up sanding those down and she was ok with it then. A lot of people also reported a lot of shipping damage on the cages too.
When I got Donovan he came with an Animal Environments cage. Nice cage but when it was dismantled the PLASTIC connecters holding the top of the cage on the side broke. I figured that would not be an issue until I tried ordering more from the company. What a nightmare. After 9 months I finally got some. I know of one lady who also has the Luxor model and finally ended up welding the thing together. They built a garage I was told AROUND the cage. Don't know how things will be handled when the time comes to move it out of there. Another friend ordered a ring stand and we had a joke going on just how long it was going to take for him to get it. Took a while. Another person told of all the frustrations in dealing with the owner Carmen and all the redundant emails and then demanding payment or the deal was off, got to the point she just will not deal with her. These are not isolated cases either. One other lady was supposed to have gotten another cage from her months ago and the last time frame she was told was the end of this month. I sure would not be holding my breath.
I have 3 Expandable Habitats cages. In years past I have taken Jody's cage apart and put it back together myself. I now pay a friend to help me take it apart and wash it and even he wonders how I did it myself in years past but it can be done. The cages are made into panels. I screw one of the front panels onto the frame with one center screw. You don't have to worry about it just standing up in the air, it will sort of flex over a bit but not bend in half or fall over. I put the second front panel on and then do the 2 rear panels. Next you take the top and have it stand up on it's long end, lift it up, line up the hole on the end you are working on, matching one front panel hole on top with the hole in that top frame and do the same with one screw on the back panel. You don't want to screw it in tight because you will next swing the opposite end of the top up and match up the holes on the other end of the cage. This is probably the hardest part about putting this cage together because the top is heavy and if you can find a second person to help it is a piece of cake then but it can be done yourself. Put the end panels on and I am done except for tightening all the screws up as you don't want everything tight until it is totally put together. Jody and Kalea's cages are 4x3 ft with the door centered in the middle which is the old way of how they made them. Now they tend to make the door as a whole panel.
Expandable Habitats designs their cages so you don't have to totally dismantle them to wash things. You can take one panel off, wash it, put it back and go onto the next panel. I prefer breaking it down, getting it outside and power washing them, especially with Jody's cage as she is messier.
I bought Jody's cage in 1994 and after hearing some horror stories people have had with other cages, I highly recommend them. Tricia (her and her hubby own the company) is great to work with, she knows birds, they have a few Macaws of their own and they build the cages themselves, not like they have them made and shipped in from China.
Heavy? Yes, but they roll when needed. I so much prefer the paper roll system they use. Pull the paper through, roll it up as you are pulling it, slice it off and you are done. Not this thing where you have to collect newspapers, pull out trays and deal with stuff that way. I get the roll of paper that has a plastic coating on one side and that is unrolled with the coating side down. The plastic coating keeps the paper together so when they take a bath in their bowls I can still pull it out. Jody I use the white paper that is not as heavy as the brown Kraft poly coated paper because she does not splash out as much water from the bowl like Kalea does. The white paper is 1100 ft in length and lasts her about 1 year.
Jody and Kalea's cages also have two feeder doors, one on each side and big enough to hold 3 bowls. I also stopped using locks. Tricia told me what they started using was taking one of the bars which has a loop on the top end, you drop that onto the latch where you would normally attach the lock to and the cage is secure. No more keys to have to deal with and Kalea (my little monkey) has still (knock on wood) never been able to lift it high enough to take it out of that loop thing.
Cages are made for the particular bird so if you have Macaws you should get the cage double welded and no Hy is going to pop a weld on these cages. They build them solid.
