Should I get a Crittertrail, a Rotastak or a SAM kind of hamster cage for 4 male dwarf hamsters?

Question

I'm getting 4 male dwarf hamsters. (not sure if I should get a Campbells or some other kind) And I was wondering what kind of cage I should get.

Are these cages reliable? Should I make my own cage? I'd rather not, but if I have to, I will. Does anyone havve any stories regarding how safe these cages are? Can my dwarf hamsters escape these cages? And are these cages changable? (e.i. adding/removing tubes and pipes for entertainment)

Please if anyone could help me out that would be awesome. : )

Answer 1

Neither, those cages are all too small, especially the crittertrail and the SAM cages.  Get a big 20 gallon long aquarium and put the hamsters in there if you really want to buy your cage (about $30 at petsmart).  You'll need at least two crittertrail/sam cages to have enough space for just one hamster.  

They need a lot of floor space to run around- a great idea is to make a bin cage.  It's pretty easy and will end up costing less than one of those other cages would.  My hamster lives in a 105 qt Sterilite container, and the other two dwarfs both have 20 gallon aquariums.  The rotastaks are all round/oval and don't have any corners, which hamsters need.

Answer 2

Get the Rotastack, I have 26 of them, none of the hamsters have escaped,  they loved it too!

Answer 3

I love my CritterTrail cage!! It is really sturdy, and I suggest for 4 Dwarf Hamsters you should get this one:

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.js...

It's big and roomy, but I think you should put quite a bit of bedding into the cage in case they fall off the platforms.

Hope I helped your decision!!

~Animal_Lover

Answer 4

Please make a bin cage or use a 20 g long aquarium as the minimum size to attempt housing 4 dwarfs in.

Hamsters use corners to orientate themselves in their enviornment and for important things like potty and nesting - a rotastak will just give your hamster a certain back ground level of annoyance and houseing multiples you want to avoid that at all costs.

Crittertrail - the bar spacing is an issue for dwarfs. They are also to small. The vertical orientation and shelves of the cage are also a bad idea - hamsters do not climb trees, do not see well and fall off and get hurt.

SAM's are too small and not as well venelated as a well constructed bin cage.

Anything with horizintal bars is bad.

Your best chance of success really is either a bin cage or a large aquarium. Bins are MUCH easier to clean due to the weight. You can easily customise and rearrange either of these. Our bins are 105 qt and I set up the tubes inside them to make safe use of the vertical space. No chelves to fall off of.

Answer 5

A couple years ago I had three dwarf hamsters (they're so cute!) and they had a Crittertrail cage with all of the plastics tubes and whatnot, and the cage worked great for about a month until i noticed that my hamsters started escaping. I cleaned the cage and found out that one of the little guys had chewed through the bottom of the cage. I'm not sure if there had been a flaw in the cage or if the hamsters had scratched enough to be able to start chewing through the plastic or what. But I found the tubes and everything to be easy cleaning and the hamsters really seemed to like it. I mixed and marched all sorts of add-ons and accessories but just make sure to get the accessories with the same opening. I learned that the hard way. Good luck!

Answer 6

I haven't had much of a problem from either critter trail or sam, I prefer critter trail because they had more wire and thusly more ventilation thatn a sam, which only has holes poked in the plastic. I will tell you that what I've heard of Rotastak is they are horrible cages, they have lots of RUBBER stopper parts that hamsters chew through in one night if they want, plus the tubes don't seems to connect extremely snugly and can come loose easily, allowing the hamster to escape. The only issue I have with any of these kinds of cages (mostly sam and crittertrail, since that is what I owned) is if you try to use too much pressure on the tube connection ports on the cage, the latches will break and make the cage impossible to keep them from escaping, so right now for my mice, I have just plain old all wire cages with sturdy plasitc bottom, not as facy or attractive as the others but A LOT cheaper and much sturdier.