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Old 04-23-2017, 11:54 AM  
Crystalroborovski
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Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: USA
Posts: 437
Default Re: How am I ever going to tame my robos?

Quote:
Originally Posted by cypher View Post
Everything has to be done in small steps & that includes cleaning.
Two hours is a very long time for the boys to have been left in the bin & if it was that long I assume you did a full cage clean?
Never do a full cage clean in future, you can spot clean daily if necessary (if you know where they pee that is) other than that just clean small areas of the cage, never all at once, maybe do a third at one time, then do a bit more a couple of weeks after that if you need to.
Most of the cage needs very little cleaning tbh, the area where they pee obviously needs to be kept clean but the rest can be left for quite a long time or you can just clean up any food debris, old poo etc from the top when needed.
If you clean the nest area always put back some of the old nest material & the same with the food hoard, either put it back or replace with some fresh mix.
You don't need to use any cleaners or disinfectant, it's important not to remove their scent any more than you absolutely have to.
The time out of the cage & not having their scent in the cage when they went back in would have been very stressful for them so it may take some time to get back to where you were with taming, just go right back to the beginning & take your time, they should come round again.

ETA I forgot to say if you put them in the bin again in future either for taming or cleaning always put some substrate in for them to dig in & include some from the cage so it smells familiar for them, wheels can help if they get a bit stressed & a couple of hideouts for them if you'll be leaving them in there while you do stuff in the cage, you could probably do most of the necessary cleaning while they're still in the cage though if it's just spot cleaning or tidying up small areas.
I didn't do a complete cage clean as I knew that would probably stress them out and it wasn't necessary. I would have spot cleaned, but I had no idea where they peed and the cage was super stinky. When I cleaned the cage, I found about five different places in which they pee- in the wheels, in their coconut, in their nesting box, and a part in the blue and a part in the white bedding. When I put the hams in the bin I included one of the wheels, a couple of small toys to hide in, the water bottle, some food and some of the bedding from the cage. I took out all of the bedding but left about 1/3-1/2 in because it was clean and replaced the rest. I didn't sanitize the toys as that was unnecessary, but I did clean out the wheels. Now I just wipe down the wheels with a paper towel and water to cut down on the urine smell. I guess it took me so long to clean because I sifted through all of the sand to remove any poop, old food and bedding but I left all of the original sand in the cage. I vacuumed out the bottom because there was a lot of scattered sand, poo and food crumbs in it. I didn't wipe down the cage either as that wasn't necessary.

So basically to summarize I removed the toys and bedding, sifted through the sand with a fine sifter, cleaned the wheels, put new bedding in and mixed it with the old clean bedding and put the toys back in. Now I'll spot clean in the future as I know where they pee but again, I didn't know where they peed and the cage smelled of urine leaving me with no choice but to do a more thorough clean.

Last night the boys were their usual selves after I turned the lights out. I tried putting my hand with a treat in the cage. They are not as comfortable with my hand as they were before :/ I was just upset because I felt like I had made them scared of me and I had ruined my taming progress. Oh well, I guess I'll just keep trying and keep you updated.
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