Please Sign The Petition to Ban Small Cages
Please support and sign the Government Petition to ban small cages. The community have gathered together and with more signatures a minimum cage size law could be made, effectively banning small cages. Here’s a message from the person who started this petition:
Who Started the Petition
My name is Alex and I run small animal rescue in Huddersfield focusing mainly on Guinea Pigs, Hamsters and Rabbits.
My journey started with a sweet Russian dwarf hamster called Stripey. As most family’s do, we decided to get our first family pet to give us a new challenge and teach our children about responsibility in a fun way. We visited our local pet store and picked up what was recommended. An extra large hamster enclosure, sawdust, food, sand and hideys. We got him home and we fell in love with our new family member. He was cute, tame and full of character! We decided to create a TikTok account to show people our new furbaby ‘FurbabyFamily2022’
Little did we know what was about to happen.……We received a barrage of comments suggesting our care was abusive. Our enclosure was too small, our bedding wasn’t deep enough, we were using the wrong substrate. (I didn’t even know what substrate was at this point!!!)?
It hit me hard. Being an animal lover since a very small child this really saddened me and at first I couldn’t believe that Pet stores could possibly be wrong with their advice and product offerings?!
I met some really cool people online and the kinder people spent time with me, advising and bringing me up to scratch with my care.
We Started A Rescue
We rescued our first pair of guinea pigs that were living in a hamster cage at the top of someone’s stairs so we moved them in with us and put them into a huge C&C enclosure. This was the start of my rescue journey.
We moved house, our TikTok started growing, we met a rescue nearby and we decided to really go for it and give the animals not just standard but Luxury living conditions to show others what good care really looks like for each species.
We rescued our first Syrian hamster in May 2022 and this hit me hard again. Belle had been living with a family who had young children. They told us that she had been thrown at walls and kicked around like a ball.
She arrived petrified in a tiny enclosure that absolutely stank of urine, not only that but she arrived with a dwarf hamster with Neurological damage, head tilt and a respiratory infection. I will remember that day forever. I put everything into Belle. I gave her everything including a much bigger enclosure. She started to love and trust me.
Fast forward to August and we had 3 viral videos on TikTok and made just under £170. This gave us some much needed funds!! We went mad, picking up lots of things that we would need to build the foundations for our little rescue.
The amount of love, questions and engagement made me realise I could really now make a bigger difference. Helping others understand what basic and better care should look like!
On the 31st of December I decided to make a New Year’s resolution. To wager war on small enclosures! I made a petition for government to consider making laws against the sale of small enclosures and have a review of what size enclosures should be on sale in the UK.
Join me, support animals and sign my petition:
