This review is all thanks to the newest member of our ever growing family, strawberry the hamster. I have been pleading for a hamster for ages and James finally caved in and off we went to the pet shop.

Now I was planning to buy a budget cage, you know the kind with a plastic tray with wire walls and roof. James being the big baby that he is suggested that the kids would probably prefer to have rotastak (more like he would prefer it). So we plunged for the rotastak maxi mansion which was reduced from£40 to £30.

I kept hamsters when I was younger and had rotastak then as well, as did my sister, so I have had a fair bit of experience with it, and I thought I would tell you all about it.

Rotastak is a type of housing for syrian hamsters predominantly, although it can easily be adapted for mice, russian hamsters, and other small rodents. It is made by armitage pet care, and is available in most pet shops and from several websites on the net.

Rotastak consists of several "rooms" linked together by tubing in a way which is meant to simulate the natural habitat of the hamster. In the wild hamsters lived in burrows in the desert with a series of tunnels underground giving them shelter from the blistering heat of the sun, the cold nights, and the predators looking for a meal.

The rotastak system offers a series of different types of rooms, the most common being the traditional round room. These consist of a solid plastic floor peice which is about a foot in diameter, a clear plastic wall peice, and a solid plastic roof which is firmly attached to the wall peice. The walls and roof can be lifted off to give access to your pet and are held onto the floor by metal clips similar to those which clip the glass onto the front of frameless picture frames.

The round rooms were originally red in colour but you can buy them now in a range of colours including yellow and blue. The roof peice of the room can be removed and replaced with a floor peice, allowing you to build these rooms upwards in a tower like structure. As I said before you need to link the rooms with tubing, and all the rooms have holes to enable you to do this. These can be plugged up if you do not wish to connect tubes to them, or you simply push a tube into the hole to connect it to another room.

The round rooms typically have a tube hole in the floor to allow you to connect it to the room below, one in the side, and three in the top, although the newer units have only two tube holes in the top as they also have a hand sized hole with a lid to allow easier access to your pet.

The round rooms have several attachments and variations. They are available with a running wheel mounted on the wall to provide your pet with a means of excercise. You can buy one which has a roundabout built into the floor peice, another way of excercising your hamster. There is a clear plastic maze unit which you can plae into a room to turn it into a two story maze to entertain your hamster. These peices are all available at prices around the £15 - £20 mark.

The other most common room for your rotastak house is a bedroom. These are much smaller than the round rooms and are designed to create a small space your hamster can nest in. They are about 15 cm in diameter and consist of two plastic dish shaped peices that twist together. The bottom peice is solid plastic and the top peice is cloloured clear plastic so you can see your pet but it is protected from the light enabling it to sleep. Several colours are available including red, blue, and more recently shocking pink.

The bedrooms have one tube hole in the bottom although they are also safe to be used sideways connected to a tube from the side of another room. They also have a maze like plastic insert to make it into a play room. I find that the hamsters like to have several of these rooms as the tend to use them to hoard food, nest, and as bathrooms. They cost around £10 altough they are included in most packages.

The next type of room which rotastak introduced was the maxi unit. This is a large kidney shaped tank big enough to stack round rooms on top of. It is made of clear plastic, with a solid plastic lid which is hinged to allow access to the hamster. There are two tube holes in the front of the unit, three in the large side of the lid to allow you to build upwards with round rooms, and one in the hinged part of the lid, although if you add tubes here you can no longer open the lid.

The maxi unit isn't available to buy seperately, only as part of a complete home set. These consist of the maxi unit and several different extention options ranging from simply a bedroom, to a series of rooms and tubing systems. They come in a wide range of colours, some having themes such as space or fairground colours. These sets are around £50 depending on the included extras. They are all provided with a running wheel and a food bowl and a water bottle which attatches to a plug in an unused tube hole.

The newest addition to the rotastak range is the pod collection. These are sections with a rectangular base and sloping walls forming a traingular peice. There are two types, ones being all plastic with a shelf inside making it a two storey room, the other being plastic based with wire walls. You can connect many pods together making a long room, or just use them individually. They have three tube holes in each end wall, as well as a tube hole in the upper level of the plastic pod section but this is simply to allow your hamster to reach this level and cannot be used to connect other units to. The pods start at around £30

That covers the main units, although there are several other room types to buy to extend your hamster home even further. The dining room is the same diameter as the round room, although it is dome shaped so you can't build on top of it. It has a tube hole in the floor and two in the side, wlthough one of the side holes should house the water bottle in a wall plug. The dining room has a drawer which slides out to enable you to feed the hamster with ease.

The home and away room is a small rectangular room which is rather similar in size and contruction to the bedroom. It has a tube hole at each end of the room, and a carry handle on top. It is designed for transporting your hamsteraltough the tube holes allow it to be used as part of the main home as well.

The basement room is the same diameter as the round rooms although it is made of clear plastic and is bucket shaped making it taller than the average room. It has no tube holes, and must be used with a round room above it, and tubing through the hole in the floor of this room. The basement should be filled with sawdust to allow your pet to burrow by itself.

The roof garden is the same shape as the dining room although the dome is made of wire, and the tube hole in the floor provides the only access.

The space station consists of two spherical units with four tube holes in each, and create good junctions in tubing systems.

The tubing can be used to allow access to the different rooms, or simply for fun extentions for your pet to explore. Several different tubes are available and can all be connected together by simply snapping them in place. Short, medium and long tubes, straight and curvy sections, corner peices and cross pieces, even adapters in case your building creates places where the wrong ends of the tubes meet and need to connect. End plugs are available as well as water bottle plugs.

The rotastak is easy to build together, although secure enough not to come apart so your hamster is safe inside it. Even small rodents can enjoy it, with the addition of tiny ladders to help them climb the tubes, although you must plan you home more carefully to ensure that they can access all levels of it easily.

The extention options available are limited only by your imgination, budget, and space, although if space is a problem you can easily extend upwards. Cleaning is easy, a bucket of soapy water and a sponge or cloth will do the job, but make sure you rinse it well. The cage is very sturdy and should last a long time, although be careful if your animal is prne to chewing. Metal anti-gnaw rings can be bought to put on the end of the tubes to prevent damage, and the rest of the system is pretty much chew proof.

Due to the incredible cost of building extentions onto your hamster home, it is advisable to shop at car boot sales, in the local paper, and on ebay for example, to obtain second hand peices at much lower prices. The durability of the rooms means that second hand peices should last well.

The main downsides to the rotastak system are the cost, and the fact that if you collect a lot of it you may find it takes forever to clean it out. I don't know if the hamsters actually prefer this kind of home to the regular cages, but it certainly looks better, and my kids like watching strawberry exploring her colourful home.

Just don't forget to ensure all unused tube holes and the ends of all the tubes have been plugged, as it is all too easy to forget and your beloved pet will wander off to explore..............