The present invention concerns a stirrer system for animal cell culture consisting of a combination of at least one radially-conveying stirrer element and at least one axially-conveying stirrer element, wherein at least three stirrer elements must be present and the uppermost stirrer element is an axially-conveying stirrer element. The stirrer elements are arranged at a certain distance above one another on a stirrer shaft. A particular embodiment is a multiple stirrer system consisting of two disk stirrers as radially-conveying stirrer elements and an inclined-blade stirrer as an axially-conveying stirrer element wherein the inclined-blade stirrer is arranged above the disk stirrer on the stirrer shaft. The stirrer system according to the invention achieves among others a gentler and better intermixing in the culture of shear-sensitive mammalian cells in cell cultures.