Little Friends small pet accessories
Little Friends is a small pet accessories range covering hideouts, hammocks, swings and cage furniture, mostly aimed at rats, hamsters and similar-sized pets rather than rabbits or guinea pigs. We stock a selection from the range, chosen to cover the things a cage is genuinely improved by having.
Hammocks, houses and enrichment
The fluffy and double hammocks give a cage-kept rat somewhere soft and elevated to sleep, which most rats take to readily since resting off the cage floor is a natural preference for them. The rat and chinchilla house and the small animal castle serve a similar purpose at floor level, giving a pet somewhere enclosed to retreat to.
The tilt table and swing are more about activity than shelter — small, safe things for a pet to climb on or push around, which matters more than it sounds for an animal spending most of its life in a cage. Rotating a couple of these items in and out keeps a cage from feeling static between full cleans.
A note on bird calcium blocks
The range also includes bird calcium blocks, which sit slightly apart from the small mammal accessories and are aimed at cage birds that need supplementary calcium in their diet. They work by the bird pecking at the block as needed rather than being something you dose or measure out.
As with any supplement, they are meant to top up a varied diet rather than replace one, and a bird that will not touch a calcium block at all is not necessarily short of calcium — check with an avian-experienced vet if you are concerned about your bird's diet rather than assuming the block alone will fix it.
Common questions
- Are Little Friends products suitable for rabbits and guinea pigs?
- Most of the range is sized for smaller pets like rats and hamsters rather than rabbits or guinea pigs, so check the dimensions of a specific item against your pet before buying. A hideout sized for a hamster will usually be too small for a rabbit.
- Do rats actually use hammocks?
- Yes, most cage-kept rats readily use a hammock once it is hung somewhere they can reach easily, since resting up off the floor is a natural preference for them. It is one of the more reliably used cage accessories for this reason.
- How do bird calcium blocks work?
- A bird pecks at the block as it needs to, rather than the block being measured out or dosed by you. It is meant to top up a varied diet rather than replace balanced feeding, so it should sit alongside proper food rather than instead of it.
- How many accessories does a small pet's cage actually need?
- There is no fixed number, but most small pets benefit from at least one place to hide or shelter and something to climb on or interact with, rotated occasionally for variety. Overcrowding a small cage with too much can be worse than having too little.
- How do I clean fabric hammocks and houses?
- Most are machine washable on a gentle, low-heat cycle, which is worth checking on the specific item before the first wash. Wash them on the same rotation as the rest of the cage bedding rather than leaving them until they look obviously dirty.
Related
Written by Matt Garnett, who runs Giddy Pets and is a lifelong pet owner — not a vet. This is general information, not veterinary advice, and it cannot replace an examination by the vet who knows your animal. How we write these guides.