Hiyas,
New poster but I have a little bit of experience in this part to share.
I've had white mice, gerbils, and currently am indulging in hamsters. If you go with the white mice, be forwarned, don't put a male/female pair in together... you shall be over run with babies in no time. Within 2 months time, I had over 100 of these things crawling about.
Gerbils and hamsters are very similar, but require alot of handling to keep tame. I currently have four hamsters, two males and two females. One set is the parents and the other two are offspring. My female mother is a black bear and she is very sweet tempered and wonderful to hold. The father is a teddy bear and is slightly still wild and hard to handle even after eight months. The babies are tame but don't like to sit still not one bit. But the 16 month old neighbor hasn't had any trouble holding them.
Being all in separate cages, and litter trained (YES! they use cat litter or you can buy special litter for them) cleaning the cages take me about 20 minutes for all four and I only have to do so about every week or two.
If you've got anymore questions, that I haven't thought of putting the information in here, let me know and I'll be happy to help out as much as I can.
