Thread: Everything Zen
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Old 07-07-2016, 11:45 PM  
cypher
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Wales UK
Posts: 24,789
Default Re: Everything Zen

Thanks everyone

Chaos still ensues but things have settled down just a tiny bit lol!
She's still digging like crazy, I think I might have bought a mole home by mistake, tunnels & mountains everywhere.
She's given up trying to bury the wheel or dig under it thankfully but everything else is still like a bomb site, her house was more or less at a 45 degree angle when I got up this morning & soon after was looking a bit like a sinking ship with just it's bow poking up above the waves until I rescued it, I don't think she was impressed by that lol!
By the sound of things & the way everything moves when she's underground she now has a nice network of tunnels over the whole floor of the cage, she's a very industrious little lady
I was hoping to begin scatter feeding soon but I'm at a bit of a loss as to where I can hide things & keep an eye on them right now, nothing stays still for long!

She's still quite timid but coming on really well & has graduated to climbing onto my fingers to take some seeds so for less than two days I'm very impressed with her bravery



Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodent Fan View Post
Cypher - can I ask, in what way should a chinese set up differ to a set up for a russian hamster? Just in case I am ever tempted by a chinese hamster... which I can see happening one day :P
Sorry to be a bit slow answering your question, Zen has been keeping me rather busy & entertained so I haven't been on much! Anyway...
One of the main differences is the house, I initially had a lovely labyrinth house in the cage & Russian hams like to have that type of house & use the different rooms for various things, a Chinese really isn't interested in rooms we provide, they would much rather just dig their own burrows & a house is basically something to burrow under, even if you put it on the base of the cage they'll find a way to burrow under it! So a labyrinth house would really be a waste of space & it can make it difficult to get to them if you need to without taking the whole thing out.
Sand baths a bit different too, I had put quite a large plastic container full of sand in but again a Chinese would just try to dig under it & you do have to be a bit careful with anything relatively heavy like that which they'll try to get under, from my experience anyway they seem to like their sand baths to be smaller, round & enclosed or partially enclosed so salt pigs work really well.
They're a lot more agile & better climbers than the other species so you can give them the opportunity to do more of that although you still have to take care to make things safe, if I'd known I was bringing a Chinese ham home I might have put a hammock or corner crush in to begin with, you still have to watch for chewing but it's much less likely than with the others, even if I hadn't put it in to begin with I would have done the basic set up with space to hang one or more whereas now I'm struggling a bit to figure out quite where I can put them, I'm sure I'll find a way though.
Other than that it's the same as with any species in that you have to wait & see what they do or don't like, make use of or enjoy in the cage.
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