What cages do you prefer?

[Emma]

This is a topic I always like to here other hamster keeper's views on.



For many years I used Rotastak cages for Syrians, as that was what I was bought with my first hamster Rosie when I was quite little. I used standard wire cages with plastic bases for Campbell's.



More recently I've been using the wire cages for all Syrians, as I've grown up and come to the conclusion that systems like the Rotastak are far too much effort to clean out, easily escapable from, and the hamsters get just as much enjoyment out of a wire cage with the right accessories and toys.



My Roborovskis are housed in a wire cage designed especially for mice/dwarf hamsters, with narrower spaced bars. They have a wheel, lots of cardboard and wooden tubes and hidey-holes made from those crittertrail jigsaw things, which they use a lot. I'm considering moving them to an aquarium-type cage though as it would give them more opportunity to burrow, which my two like to do. And then the cage they vacate would be a perfect home for a Chinese....*schemes about getting more hamsters!*



As I'm only on a small scale I still prefer more aesthetically pleasing cages like the wire ones and aquarium types, although I think the expensive brand-name systems with lots of add-ons and accessories are a bit of a waste of time. If in the future I am able to set up a little hamstery, then I'd probably go for the adapted bin cages.



So what cages do others like to use?