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AmityvilleHams · 08-18-2019, 02:50 PM

Weekly cleans and even twice weekly cleans are indeed a thing of the past Ria P! We've come very far in the hamster community to have learned that we actually only need spot cleaning if anything during most times, and that the deeper the substrate the longer they'll go for cleaning.

In fact, we've come far enough with some German help to figure out that a square meter cage for a Syrian with 12+ inches of substrate may never even need cleaning in the entire life span of a hamster, because full cleanings are just not needed. We instead focus on slowly removing very small portions of substrate, and over time this does mean the initial substrate is replaced without stressing the hamster out by doing too much at once.

When you're gradually replacing substrate regardless of cage size or species(so long as the substrate is deep enough such as 6+ inches for dwarf species and 12+ for Syrians), it does mean you shouldn't ever need full cleanings except in the most extreme of circumstances(such as certain illness and bug infestations that would require such thorough cleaning).

08-18-2019, 02:50 PM
AmityvilleHams PM Fluffy for custom title Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 4,545	Re: Cleaning Weekly cleans and even twice weekly cleans are indeed a thing of the past Ria P! We've come very far in the hamster community to have learned that we actually only need spot cleaning if anything during most times, and that the deeper the substrate the longer they'll go for cleaning. In fact, we've come far enough with some German help to figure out that a square meter cage for a Syrian with 12+ inches of substrate may never even need cleaning in the entire life span of a hamster, because full cleanings are just not needed. We instead focus on slowly removing very small portions of substrate, and over time this does mean the initial substrate is replaced without stressing the hamster out by doing too much at once. When you're gradually replacing substrate regardless of cage size or species(so long as the substrate is deep enough such as 6+ inches for dwarf species and 12+ for Syrians), it does mean you shouldn't ever need full cleanings except in the most extreme of circumstances(such as certain illness and bug infestations that would require such thorough cleaning).