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Old 03-12-2018, 09:45 AM  
Pigsland
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Posts: 13
Default Re: Undecide between these types of beddings only, help welcome!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Serendipity7000 View Post
I agree with Cypher - Hugro Hemp or Fitch. Carefresh is expensive and Fitch is better - although if you like the idea of one colourful area then a bag of Carefresh confetti along with hemp might be fun

Cagewise. You do well to check what to upgrade to. If your hammy is in a temporary one at the moment, best not to upgrade for 3 weeks at least to give Squeeks time to settle and then move all his existing bedding across to the new cage on top of the new bedding so it smells familiar. It won't matter if there is some wood shavings mixed in with the new bedding and it will gradually get changed over as you spot clean over the next few weeks.

Is Squeek a dwarf or Syrian hamster? Cages with tubes actually aren't a great idea - especially for Syrians. They do better with more floor space, not too much height and enrichment within the cage - eg tubes as floor toys or access from one part of the cage to another are good - these can be cardboard, cork, hyacinth type tubes - or plastic. Any kind of tube or tunnel but shorter lengths are better than longer ones. The idea being that they use the tunnel because they want to rather than having no option but to go down a long tube to get from A to B.

A lot of people hear that bigger cages are better and think tall is big What it means is size of floor area, as they are basically ground dwellers and not that good at climbing (and tend to just drop and can hurt themselves if a cage is too tall). So when thinking about a new cage think - floorspace, floor toys and one level so it;s something to sit under and to put heavier items on so they don't sink in the substrate or get tunnelled under.

They also like enough substrate to dig in and may make mountains out of it or dig tunnels. A house that's open underneath and on top of the substrate is ideal so they can burrow down and bury hoards under the nest and snack while in bed Which they like doing.

So when looking at cages it's good to think about- floorspace, height, accessibility (ie does it have good sized doors and where are they).

Zooplus has some good options that aren't too expensive:

The Alaska, Barney and Alexander cages are all popular. If it's for a Syrian I would suggest the Barney or Alexander. If it's for a dwarf hammy - any of those three but setting up would need thinking about to avoid fall risks from a height.

The Hamster heaven is also good for a dwarf hammy is it's lower than the three mentioned above - but personally I think it can be a bit cramped for a syrian especially with a larger wheel in it. Most of the colourful plastic stuff in the Hamster Heaven is pretty useless and most people end up removing it all. The tubes get blocked up and it doesn't allow hamsters to have normal nesting and foraging behaviours using the tubes and penthouse.

So if you like that cage, it's good but I;d think about putting your own items in the empty cage and only keeping one of the platforms, no tubes or penthouse.
He is a Robo so some for Syrian will not apply I am going quite mad looking for a cage as I can't go too big however what I have found of good size isn't suitable for Robo for a reason or another! I was looking at the heaven however I have read that ramps are too steep for Robo and tube are too big, ideally a 10cm less than that cage would be ideal to fit in our living room free space.

Bedding wise I have narrowed it down to Fitch and Hugro Hemp Bedding, I am just trying to understand which one is better for nesting, however I may do a mix with a main one plus a particular side just for nesting.

Just bought him a silent wheel as my GP were quite annoyed by him running last night on the built in wheel spoiled piggies!
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