Thread: Hamster penis?
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Old 01-13-2019, 02:30 AM  
Pebbles82
Hamster Antics
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 23,533
Default Re: Hamster penis?

Most people mean wood shavings when they say sawdust - is that right? The best way to have things sanitary is use a litter tray With chinchilla bathing sand in it - Syrian hamsters will use it to pee in if you put it in the right place (ie the place they have chosen which is often a corner of the cage). Then the rest of the cage stays clean, the sand soaks up the pee and you just empty the litter tray and clean it out and replace the sand every few days. This is much better for the hamster as full cleanouts are very stressful for them.

We humans have an instinct to want to have everything spanking clean and clean everything all at the same time but hamsters are really quite clean little things, wash themselves a lot etc. Their pee is the only thing that smells.

As alpa says, it is not good to clean them out every day. You can just spot clean mostly and then only need to change the substrate after 6 to 8 weeks or even longer because you're gradually replacing it a little bit when spot cleaning - especially if they use a litter tray. They scent mark their cages to feel familiar and find their way around so cleaning everything at the same time removes all their familiar scent and stresses them and you will get abnormal and stress behaviours.

Also don't worry about their poops - they eat them sometimes, which is normal - they have two stomachs and can redigest nutrients and vitamins from their poops. They're not dirty or smelly either, they're like little hard seeds and they will hoard them sometimes for emergency supplies! So unless the poops are really taking over the cage in a big way, just leave them.

Ideally you clean things at different times so somehting always smells familiar - eg wheel one week, toys as and when (they often don't need much cleaning very often, and substrate a different time again. Even then it's good not to change allthe substrate,but replace some of the clean old and mix it in so it still smells familiar.

Hamsters are more likely to catch germs from us than the other way round.

So - it takes a bit of curbing the cleaning urge! Imagine if you came home and found someone had redecorated your whole house, stripped the bed and moved everything around. It wouldn't feel like your home and you'd feel invaded.
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