MidWest Guinea Habitat Plus review

Buy the MidWest Guinea Habitat Plus if you have another pet in the house, and buy a C&C cage if you do not. That is the whole decision and it turns on one feature rather than on floor area. The Habitat Plus measures 47 x 24 inches, which is 1,128 square inches or about 7.8 square feet by our arithmetic against a manufacturer-stated 8 square feet. Humane World for Animals publishes 7.5 square feet as the bare minimum for two guinea pigs and 10.5 square feet as preferred, and we buy to the preferred figure — so this cage clears the minimum and misses what we recommend by 2.7 square feet. Against that it is the only guinea pig enclosure we assess that ships with a removable wire mesh top and a divider panel, and a lid is not a luxury in a house with a cat or a dog. An open-topped pen with 2.7 more square feet in a room with a predator in it is not the better buy.

There is a second reason this cage is worth its own page, which is that it is the only guinea pig enclosure on this site with a buy link. The Kavee C&C cages we rate above it on floor area are not sold on Amazon and are on no affiliate programme we are part of, so per our own disclosure rules they appear as reference entries with their specification source cited and no buy button. We would rather say that out loud on the page than let a reader assume the one with a button is the one we rate highest. On floor area alone, it is not.

The specifications, as published

The lid, which is the reason to buy it

Guinea pigs are a prey species and a cat is a predator that lives in the same room. A C&C cage with 13.8 inch walls and no top is open from above to anything that can jump onto a 14 inch wall, which is every cat and most dogs. The mesh top here removes that entirely, and it also removes the second problem nobody mentions: a toddler. If the honest description of your household includes another animal or a small child, a lid moves from nice-to-have to the specification you are buying.

It is worth noting what the lid costs you. A mesh top makes the cage harder to reach into, it is one more thing to take off at cleaning time, and it slightly reduces the sense of open space the C&C format gives. Those are real and they are small next to the thing it prevents.

The divider, which is the reason to keep it

The divider panel with lock-in-place ramps turns one cage into two, and the situations where that matters are specific but common: introducing a new pig and needing a see-but-not-touch period, separating two boars that have fallen out, isolating an animal that is recovering or on medication, or keeping a newly weaned male apart. Every one of those otherwise means buying or borrowing a second enclosure at short notice. Having it built in is the kind of feature you do not value until the week you need it.

The floor, and what it does over time

The base is a PVC-lined canvas bottom, which is solid, washable and considerably kinder to feet than wire — Humane World for Animals states plainly that cages with wire floors are not acceptable for guinea pigs, along with plastic tubs and glass aquariums, so a solid floor is a requirement rather than a preference. The canvas does one thing well and one thing badly. It is light, it wipes down and it does not crease like a correx base. It also absorbs urine at the seams over time, and once the seams have taken it up the smell lives in the cage rather than in the bedding. A fitted fleece liner on top is the fix, and it is the reason we assess liners at all — the best guinea pig cage liners is the shortlist and liners versus disposable bedding is the economics of the choice.

Where it loses to a C&C cage

• Floor area. 7.8 square feet against a Kavee 4x2's 10.6, which clears the preferred figure for a pair where this does not. 2.8 square feet is a quarter more room, and for guinea pigs floor is the thing that stops a pair pacing.
• Expandability. Expanding a C&C cage means buying grids; expanding this means buying another whole unit. If there is any chance of a third pig, the modular format is the cheaper long-term purchase and the C&C cage guide explains how the sizing works.
• Wall height, marginally. 14 inches here against 13.8 on a Kavee, so this one is fractionally better and both clear the published 12 inch minimum. Not a real difference.
• Long-term floor durability. Correx creases at the corners and is cheap to replace; canvas absorbs at the seams and is not replaceable separately.

Who should buy it

A household with a cat or a dog, a household with a small child, anyone who may need to separate two animals, and anyone who wants a finished product out of a box rather than a flat-pack grid build. For those buyers this is the right cage and the 2.7 square foot shortfall against our preferred figure is the price of the lid. The honest mitigation is floor time: the cage is the base, not the whole range, and daily run time in a secured pen is how a 7.8 square foot cage becomes an adequate life. Our cage-size recommendation does not change, and guinea pig cage size for 2 is where that figure is worked through.

Who should not: anyone buying on floor area alone with no other pets in the house. For that buyer the modular C&C format gives a quarter more room at a similar spend and grows with the herd, and C&C versus store-bought cages is the direct comparison.