Give your hamster the home of its dreams! (Rotastak Cages)

Member Name: Rose Pink

Product:	Rotastak Cages
Date:	31/03/07 (1395 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to clean, attractive, fun, hamsters love them, keep sawdust in the cage

Disadvantages: Expensive, difficlult to assemble, not completely secure, takes up a lot of space

I have the rotastak adventure zone cage. I bought it for £39.99 from
http://www.petstuffonline.co.uk,
postage and packing is £3.95, but on orders over £50 its free, so just can just spend money on food and bedding from the site to bump it up to £50.

It is a brilliant price, and the cheapest new rotastak adventure zone I could find. It may seem a little expensive at first but the cage is huge, and whilst other rotastak cages are sometimes cheaper, the idea is to buy other rotastak units to extend the cage. However I found this unnecessary with the adventure zone as it is already huge.

Also when you are finished with your rotastak cage they fetch a good price on eBay, approximately £30, sometimes more, whilst other regular cages tend not to sell. Therefore you end up with the majority of your money back.

There are many advantages of the rotastak cage. One of these is that it is incredibly easy to clean. Everything comes apart and you can fit most parts in your sink and so clean them thoroughly. Anyone who has tried to do this with a full size barred cage will know how useful this is.

Also hamsters really seem to love it. Rotastak cages are designed to mimic a hamsters natural habitat, as in the wild their burrows consist of many different rooms linked by tunnels. Therefore hamsters feel very at home in a rotastak cage. They also love the opportunity to burrow in the sawdust in the kidney tank, which most cages deny due to their shallow bottoms.

One of the main reasons I like rotastak is because they are very tidy. In my old, regular barred cage, my hamster used to attempt to burrow in the shallow bottom, and whilst doing so kick sawdust through the bars, all over the floor creating a huge mess. This is largely prevented in the rotastak cages. There is only one barred section but there has been no problem with this small part, I think because my hamster does his burrowing in the plastic walled kidney shaped tank, where no sawdust can escape.

The rotastak cages are fun, colourful and attractive, and building them up can be great fun. However rotastak does have some problems. If you are planning to build up a hamster empire, be prepared to fork out a lot of money and make sure you have a lot of surfaces nearby to expand to, as they take up a lot of space.

Also I wouldn't consider them to be the safest cages in the world. My hamster escaped within an hour of entering the cage. However if you masking tape shut the sides of the cage and any bungs your hamster is left safe inside the cage, but this is a lot of effort.

Also it is quite fiddly to construct, especially the first time. If you don't have high patience levels beware! I didn't find the instructions sheet to be brilliant and there are so many different safety clips and tunnels that it is very confusing. However it becomes much simpler after the first few times.

Also be aware that many rotastak cages, not the adventure zone though, are designed to be or have extensions. I have watched people try and keep a hamster in unexpanded rotastak cages that are only meant as one room and it’s just cruel. Overall, although rotastak cages have some disadvantages I think that they are very superior to most other cages and well worth the investment.

Summary: The overall best cage you can buy for your hamster