Rotastak Small Animal Housing Maxi Tunnel of Fun

I bought this for a hamster that can spend hours biting the bars on a regular cage, the noise of which drives me round the bend! (He has all the little toys and things to chew on - he just prefers the flavour of metal i guess). It stopped the bar biting, only thing is he now likes to chew on the tip of the water bottle, but that's a lot quieter and no where near as irritating as bar biting. Our hamster likes to pack one of the tubes with sawdust for some reason?! He loves this little cage, easy to put together, easy to clean, and sturdy and secure. Great Buy!!

I bought this product about a week ago for my little chinese dwarf hamster. I have to say I am really not impressed with it, it is extremely difficult to put together and when it is put together it is not that sturdy at all! Especially the island at the top. To clean the cage you have to take it all apart cause it just ends up falling apart anyway and then it's an effort to get it all together again. It is really hard to pick my hamster up out of the cage, in my opinion they should have made the lid (in which you left up to get them out) a little bigger cause it is to hard for me to pick him up. The tubes are also really difficult to put together, I found it so difficult and some didn't fit at all. So all in all I am now looking for a new cage cause I am really not impressed with this one and do not want a fight to get him out or when cleaning the cage.Good delivery from Amazon though!!

Great size cage easily fits my 3 mice in, unfortunately i were missing the cage clips for the top bit, and it doesnt come with a wheel. Apart from that it was easy to put together and really easy to clean/open.

We have the original version of this Rotastak and without doubt the build/moulding quality of this latest model is noticeably inferior to the original that sits beside it. The water bottle arrived cracked and one of the sprung metal retaining clips split into two as my son fitted it causing the sharp metal to fly up in the air. Even he said 'that's really dangerous', and he doesn't use them. Some of the mouldings weren't trimmed correctly making it look like it just came out of the mould. If I hadn't received the cage from Amazon I'd have assumed I bought a cheap fake and not a real Rotastak cage. We also bought the matching  Rotastak Rainbow Runner  wheel and the thickness of the main wheel's clear plastic (it's not yellow) is around half that of our original Rainbow Runner. Also fitting the Rainbow Runner to the base of this cage cracked the plastic on the main clear base (the inside of the hole looked OK but rough bits from the mould made it smaller than it should be - still Sellotape on the outside keeps the crack in check). I assume this drop in quality is due to the Rotastak now selling for nearer £30 (on 'offer' compared to the £49 it used to be). Still as we have an attic full of old Rotastak original quality mouldings we can patch the cage together and expand it from the bits supplied. I have been buying cracked water bottles from Rotastak for a couple of years now (I purchase water bottle replacements in-store now so I can check them out before buying).Despite this the cage works sell enough, but we avoid using the metal clips as it would be nice for the kids to keep their eyes safe and enjoy watching the hamster in the cage (again our old Rotastak cage clips never did this, but they don't fit this new cage despite looking right). Our large Syrian is fine in the cage (he's happy using the optional Rainbow wheel and we add Vaseline to the bearing). We put the sleeping unit over the top first floor circular unit as the hamster can push off the round yellow hatch - we twist round the sleeping unit to hold the hatch down. Our Rotastak came in Orange and Grey not the prettier blue and red/yellow as shown, but orange used to be my sons favourite colour and it matches his bedroom feature wall, so that's fine for us as well - the small sleeping compartment now has a clear top, so we cut a strip of A4 paper and taped it into a tube and put that around the side of the sleeping quarters lid to give the hamster some welcome privacy. We still really like the Rotastak design for Syrians and Russian/Roborovski dwarf hamsters (with the optional 'mouse' ladder in the tubes) and will continue to use it, so 3*, but I hope the quality goes up in future as I'd rather pay £10 more and get the premium product Rotastak used to be. My son did get a big open rectangular wire cage, but soon came back to Rotastak for both of his Syrians, and they seem to prefer the Rotastak designs for furtively moving about under cover as it mimics their underground burrows. Downside is that you have to train the hamster to come to you to easily take him out for handling (food is the way to a hamsters heart) and it is a bit more laborious to clean out the cages, particularly when like us you add on extra Rotastak units. We've used the Rotastak system for over 40 years with Syrians with no problems at all regarding their tube system. My only concern with recommending Rotostak now is the poor build quality, as the latest cages need a bit of finishing off with sandpaper and more careful use, so perhaps also try secondhand for the original Rotastak red/blue/yellow designs from 5 years ago or earlier.

We got our first gerbil just after xmas (a rescue one that had been on her own for a while in the shop) and this has proved very good for her so far.Pros: with enough sawdust she loves burying everything!; has enough space for one (would not recommend for 2 unless buying additonal pods & tubes), she can navigate easily in the tubes, she has been digging on the plastic but shows no immediate signs of wear so will last a while I suspect; easy to lift in tact and we are using it to get her out into the bath for a run around while we clean it out;Cons: the instructions are not full proof so took some time to construct (no more than 45 mins though); did not come with enough gnaw-proof rings for the tubes so have to purchase 2 more; the plastic food bowl is redundant; still trying to find something to put in the smallest pod to enourage her to explore this bit more; water bottle could be better placed as she is constantly burying it (despite us moving the food bowl to the top pod)All in all though a good, solid cage and our gerbil seems happy in it :-)

The lid for the main compartment had the hinge snapped off it so had to super glue this back on before use. I'm sure Amazon would have exchanged the item for a non-defective lid but I'd already arranged the purchase of mice so couldn't really go without a cage. The colour of the cage isn't the same as in the picture and the food bowl is of much poorer quality. I've had this model before so know what to expect, this one seemed to be of inferior quality with lids being poorly fitting and too tight.

We bought a gerbilarium on the advice of the pet shop but the poor things really struggled with the wire flooring. I got a couple of these instead to put together and the gerbils are much happier. It's easy to assemble, and dismantle for cleaning. Some of the joints don't seem overly secure but no escapes as yet and a bit of tape would do the job.