Hamster Central - View Single Post - Where does the continuous floor space rule come from?

Schwartzie · 06-17-2019, 12:25 AM

While I was researching and I had sat down and drew my new cages (I originally wanted to use two Samla bins from IKEA which weren't big enough on their own) to scale...ratio 1/5 and started to realise that I would have to duplicate everything because I felt it would be tricky if you created a play area on top with sleeping and eating on the bottom - or whatever arrangement you wanted. What would happen if the hamster didn't want to use the tunnel between the two cages? What would happen if he got a fright and didn't want to use the top level? If you draw what a Syrian needs to scale it would not fit on one level of a small cage or bin. You have to have enough burrowing substrate with depth to dig, the sand bowl, wheel and house take up so much space. You wouldn't be able to place little hideouts around because there isn't enough space. I learnt on this forum that even the platforms need hideouts. It makes sense. If you walk into the room and spook your hamster and he is on his way to the wheel to run on it, the time he takes for him to get back to his house may make him think twice before venturing so far from it. He needs a place right near him to dart under or into. In the end my husband and I literally adjusted the entire room to fit in a cage that is big enough. It wasn't expensive either. We bought a rabbit cage and bought bending wire mesh and cable tied it on. Was really fun. Now that my cage is the correct size floor space wise I am designing layered plateaus so that the bedding under his house will be over 10inches deep for burrowing. I have the space now to meet all the dimensions required.

06-17-2019, 12:25 AM
Schwartzie Adult Hamster Join Date: Jun 2019 Posts: 385	Re: Where does the continuous floor space rule come from? While I was researching and I had sat down and drew my new cages (I originally wanted to use two Samla bins from IKEA which weren't big enough on their own) to scale...ratio 1/5 and started to realise that I would have to duplicate everything because I felt it would be tricky if you created a play area on top with sleeping and eating on the bottom - or whatever arrangement you wanted. What would happen if the hamster didn't want to use the tunnel between the two cages? What would happen if he got a fright and didn't want to use the top level? If you draw what a Syrian needs to scale it would not fit on one level of a small cage or bin. You have to have enough burrowing substrate with depth to dig, the sand bowl, wheel and house take up so much space. You wouldn't be able to place little hideouts around because there isn't enough space. I learnt on this forum that even the platforms need hideouts. It makes sense. If you walk into the room and spook your hamster and he is on his way to the wheel to run on it, the time he takes for him to get back to his house may make him think twice before venturing so far from it. He needs a place right near him to dart under or into. In the end my husband and I literally adjusted the entire room to fit in a cage that is big enough. It wasn't expensive either. We bought a rabbit cage and bought bending wire mesh and cable tied it on. Was really fun. Now that my cage is the correct size floor space wise I am designing layered plateaus so that the bedding under his house will be over 10inches deep for burrowing. I have the space now to meet all the dimensions required.