Kaytee Comfort Wheel Small 5.5 Inches

One of my children loves hamsters and two years ago we purchased one to be just hers. He was an extremely large, fat hamster and had outgrown his wheel. My daughter had been asking for ages for a new wheel and I finally purchased this large hamster wheel for him. The sad thing is he only used it a few days. I suppose I should have seen it coming as he was quite old.Well, last week we headed to the pet store and adopted a beautiful white hamster. He is much smaller and thinner than the last one, but he loves his wheel and runs on it all night long.My daughter says the wheel is not silent, but has a rhythmic sound. Not loud, but It definitely makes a noise when moving. What makes this wheel better than her last one, is it is not metal and does not have the mesh which sometimes the little guy would get his feet stuck into. The only drawback to an enclosed wheel, is hamsters are not picky on where they pee and so the wheel gets filthy now and then.The wheel fits fine at one end of a 10 gallon tank. We also have other habitats and tubes for the little guy to roam about as the tank would be too small with the wheel, house, food dishes and water all placed in the tank. But again everything I mentioned is in the 10 gallon tank and the wheel fits perfectly.Pros:Extremely large – even our old hamster which is one of the largest I have ever seen fit on it just fineNo mesh so little feet do not get hurtInexpensive – by far the cheapest wheel out there for the sizeFits in the 10 gallon tankCons:Not silent

My little Penelope Hazelnut ran on this wheel every night for 2 years! Sure it made noise but NOT like a wire one does and it was big enough for a Syrian Hamster to run like the wind while not hurting her back or getting bumblefoot. They say the average Syrian Hamster runs 5 miles a night and she did, gleefully! All I had to do was sing"RUN RUN RUN!! and she'd hop in and get going! She loved it. She'd often come out of her wheel to touch noses with my cats, whoever was watching her at that moment, and then run right back to the wheel and run, run, run. Back and forth to the kitty nose then tot he wheel. Almost as if she was saying "LOOK!! SEE WHAT I CAN DO!!"Unfortunately, hamsters lifespans are terribly short. The February night she passed, I heard her running and running about an hour before I went into the room to be with her. It was the warmest room in the house and I ate my dinner with her...she LOVED chicken! I guess when I stopped hearing the wheel, the Good Lord switched her off. :'( She lived a happy little life and LOVED her wheel.

The media could not be loaded. I got my niece two new baby gerbils for her birthday and settled on this wheel vs other smaller ones or the ones with a mesh wire grate or the really expansive ones. I was worried this might be to big for them to spin up or stop once its going as they are so small, but it's working out just fine. Once they figure out what it is they probally spend an hour or more a day in it.But it's not without its faults, here are the pros and cons that we have observed.Pros- The gerbils love it and use it so that's the main point.- Even though its big it rotates freely so they can get it going with no problem. Also its not so massive that they can't stop.- The entire wheel is solid so unlike the wire mesh kind there is no way their little paws can get stuck in the mesh and injured. Also since the entire wheel is solid it contains all their pee as they do pee while running on it. So you won't get pee slung around their enclosure like other kinds.- The wire stand it mounts onto pulls right off and the wheel can be pulled off the post it rotates on making cleaning a snap. We just put it in the kitchen sink and spray it with sanitizer and rise it all out. Also since the wheel just slides off the mount you can ditch the stand if you have a wire cage and mount it to your cages bars. Our tank is a 20 gallon aquarium so we need the stand.Cons- Since they will pee in it as they are running you need to be prepared to clean it every other day as it gets rank pretty quick. The plus side is that it contains all the pee and it dries on the wheel until cleaning. And since the pee can't get slung out into their tank or bedding it keeps their bedding and tank cleaner much longer.- The wheel is pretty loud! The gerbils are in their own room, but you can hear them when they jump on it. I cut out a felt circle and mounted it the shaft the wheel buts up to and that cut the noise down in half but it's still loud because of a few of the other reasons below.- The wheel is really out of balance and they can get it rotating very fast so it shakes badly contributing to its noise profile.- The wire mount has a bit of a spring action to it contributing to the vibration and noise as well.- As the wheel spins it will start rotating due to gyroscopic progression (look it up). What this means is that it will start turning on its axis 90degs to the direction of the wheels spin and eventually hit anything like the side of your tank, etc. You'll just have to either reset it every day or weigh it down.For the price it can't be beat. The Gerbils do compete to use it so if you have more than one you probally need to get a second wheel. Once I can expand their enclosure I'm gong to get them a second wheel.A few pics and a slow-mo vid attached. Keep in mind that these are new gerbils that are only like 2 months old and are pretty small. I can't see how they would be comfortable in one of those 6 inch wheels!

For the price - this is a wonderful wheel. It is quiet. It is light. Easy to clean. The RIGHT size for mice, hamsters - not too small, like most. If you want a pretty quiet wheel that is healthy for your small pet, easy to care for and a great price - this is it!