Habitrail facts for kids
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 configured however the owner likes, as well as disassembled for cleaning. The Habitrail is meant to mimic the habitat of the animal in question, usually a warren, or series of tunnels. The mascot for Habitrail is "Herbie the Hamster", who even has a video game based on him called Habitrail Hamster Ball produced by Data Design Interactive in 2005 and released for the PS2, and the PC.
Large Habitrails may contain multiple bathroom spots chosen by the pet, and a good Habitrail should incorporate small holes and metal bars to increase ventilation. Habitrails do not make good cages for gerbils, due to the tendency of these animals to chew obsessively on the rim of the cage.
Innovative features, including the bed, food area, and hamster wheel, make excellent use of the enclosure's small areas. Use of clear plastics also makes it easy to see the hamster scuttling around the various pods and tunnels.
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" is a common term for the raised wire-form ball guide in a pinball machine.
