Quote:
Originally Posted by Sm_banks
You should spot clean every day if there is a visible mess, you should do a full cage clean out once a month. All new substrate, new food, a new toy. You get the picture
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Sorry disagree here - a potty trained hamster can easily go 2 or 3 months or even longer without a 'full' clean, and even then it is better to not clean everything at the same time (ie do a partial clean). Hamsters get stressed by change and by having their scent removed. I learned a lot from this video by Erin's Hamsters and it works really well for me (our hamster got terribly stressed by cage cleans and now he's ok with this new routine). The more substrate you use, the less often you need to do a full cage clean as you only every need to replace the top third to a half. And clean the toys at a different time and the wheel as and when.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jVnEjrXbww
Hamsters have different personalities. A lot of hamsters, like ours, hate anything moving or changing in their cage and like everything to stay the same. Some, like hrl's can find it interesting to have a bit of change. I'd say generally Syrians don't like change. Ours is ok if you add something new (mostly!) but gets very stressed if you change his familiar route and move something to a different place.