Re the cleaning out the house. I haven't had a robo but with my experience of our Syrian I think they like to eat, sleep, hoard and pee in their hide/house. I ended up getting bigger and bigger houses for our hamster. The first larger house I got he stopped using the potty in his cage and started peeing in a corner of his house. As it was quite a large house I moved the potty inside it and he carried on using it in the house
He now has a labyrinth house and those seem very popular with hammies - they are nice and dark inside, and they can have separate areas for nesting, hoarding and having a toilet. Rodipet make some very good ones and have one that is for a Robo. They even sell a little ceramic toilet that fits in it, for a dwarf hamster
Although it's usually best to put the potty/litter tray in the same place that the hamster has chosen to pee, so you often have to wait to see where they pee in the house before putting the toilet in (with wood houses, people paint them inside with plastikote water based paint, which waterproofs it and makes it wipe clean and is hamster safe).
With a small house everything just gets pee'd on! And then you end up having to remove their nest (which they hate!) and some of their hoard.
It could be worth a try. There is also the Trixie Leif labyrinth house which is a similar idea. Someone on here made their own labyrinth house out of cardboard boxes. They also have a lift off roof and two entrances. Hammies seem to like the two entrances. The lift off roof is great because you can check inside without having to take the house out, so the nest doesn't fall apart, and the hamster has space to pee somewhere other than in their nest. When I got our labyrinth house I put the potty in the room next to the room where I thought our hammy would nest (they tend to choose the area that is darkest - ie furthest away from the door and round a corner) and sure enough he nested in that area and pee'd in the room closest to it, where I had put the potty. He hoards in one of the other compartments, but also underneath his nest as before. He used to love zooming in and out of the top door (he's quite old now so just uses the front door now).
So a larger cage can be good, even for a shy hamster, if there are larger things in it and a dark house that makes them feel secure, where they can carry out their normal hamster habits of nesting, hoarding and having a toilet area. In the rest of the cage you'd need lots of deep substrate so your hammy can dig tunnels, and have lots of "cover" - eg toilet roll tubes, cardboard boxes, other lightweight tunnels and so on, on top of the substrate. So they can use the space without feeling too exposed from above. There's a video from Wood Green that gives an example of this in a bin cage - their video has some useful tips although I wouldn't use the knitted blankets they have in their tank in case they're chewed! Plus the substrate needs to be deeper and something softer than paper from a shredder. (Fitch is popular on here - it's similar to carefresh but cheaper and bought in bulk).
A platform in a cage can also give cover and something to go under. Just a piece of wood on legs, you can either make or buy one. So it can be quite easy to set up a larger cage and make it a good environment for a Robo.
Probably best to give it a couple of weeks of settling in though, without any cleaning, except a bit of spot cleaning. That can be a bit of a vicious circle if your hammy pees in his house and that is the bit that needs spot cleaning.
Personally I would say a bigger cage is worth doing in a couple of weeks. If it doesn't go down well it's easy enough to make it a smaller area by making one end a digging end full of substrate and filling up the cage with large tunnels and hidey places.
Even with our Syrian I used to find if the wheel was near the house he wouldn't venture much beyond that area (he was quite lazy lol) except at night when he'd use the whole cage. So I used to have a kabob with extra fresh food on at the far end of the cage and he then got in the habit of using all the cage to get to the extra food
and made himself a bit of a "route" there and back. Then when he got to that end he got some new habits and used to sit in a little ceramic thing to eat the food and have a groom.
Mainly you need lots of deep substrate as they do like tunneling!
This is the Rodipet labyrinth house - gives you an idea of how they work (there's a video further down the page) and this in itself would take up a fair bit of space in a cage - it would probably fill a smaller cage.
They are very active, especially at night and the more space there is with deep substrate, the more of a tunnel network they can dig, so as long as it is set up right I don't see it would be a problem and would give more enrichment and more chance to explore and build confidence.
This is the Robo sized labyrinth house. It's the same layout as my larger Syrian sized one (photo below).
https://www.rodipet.de/shop/haeuser/...x20cm-5cm.html
Unfortunately the exchange rate with the pound isn't that good at the moment. The 24.95 euros used to work out about £16 or £17 but after the EU thing it has changed and now works out about £21. They also charge £7 postage, so they're not cheap. But if you have a look at Enerham's thread on Speedy, she made her own with some tissue boxes and a piece of cardboard for a lid
This is the Wood Green video (ignore the cleaning instructions!) - it shows how the floor of cage can have a lot of cover though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCe6eO0oO1I
This is another example of a robo set up - lots of things in it and a platform for cover (although the platform is a bit high maybe).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2RTLFZOxyA
This one is quite fun - showing how active and fast they can be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDqtt6RtFU
This one shows a Robo burrowing and another set up with levels and enrichment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LiEYTn9DIY
So lots of enrichment makes it more of a normal habitat for them - lots of floor toys and tunnels, deep substrate for burrowing and safe places to hide - some people also scatter feed.
Bin cages can be good if you don't mind a bit of diy. There are 2 or 3 good sized bins I'm aware of that are a good size. And also the Zoozones you mentioned (perspex tanks). Glass tanks can be a bit expensive but Zooplus sell the Kerry Terrarium which is a reasonable size (but costs about £69).
Someone on here recommended this Really Useful box recently, as being good for a bin cage, and it's a good size as well
http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.u...145_0litre.php
Ferplast also make Duna Tanks which are basically the same as the Zoozone but they have narrow bar spacing on top so don't need meshing (the Zoozones have 2cm bar spacing so do need meshing). On the other hand the larger Zoozone works out much cheaper than the maxi Duna Multi (both are 100cm perspex tanks). Personally I don't think that would be too big if set up right. Some people even use a whole detolf for a robo! The enrichment and set up is the key - so they have different levels, places to go, tunnels to hide in and run through and not to much exposed space.
If they have a place to nest where they feel safe (a house that is dark inside and enough space to do hamster things) that would help them feel more secure as well.
If you upgrade in a couple of weeks time you could actually put the whole base of the current cage inside the new one at first, at one end. Setting up the new one with extra things at the other end. So the old cage base is still familiar and your robo can explore from there.
This is a Robo set up in a detolf which looks amazing
Those large cork logs are really good for giving a long dark tunnel and something to climb over and cover a lot of floor area. This is the kind of set up I'd like to go for if I ever had a Robo (which I would like at some point!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDh-Q-e720A
http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/small_...tunnels/193470
So she is still early days and in scent marking, familiarising mode, so needs to not be cleaned out too much and gain in confidence a bit but I'm sure moving her in a couple of weeks could be a good thing if set up well. For now you could maybe put a slightly larger house in (eg a cardboard box with a hole in for a door) open underneath so you can spot clean the substrate. And a dish of chinchilla sand to encourage her to pee in that - and they need a sand bath anyway.
Last video - just to show the shelves in this detolf. This one is split into two for two Robos, but it's mainly to show the large shelves/levels that can make a nice dark area underneath and the depth of substrate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvtfw5y4EOw
So seeing those set ups should give lots of ideas for toys and enrichment
Forgot the pic of charlie's labyrinth house. This is a set up for a Syrian so everything's big
The first pic is the house at one end of his cage (doubles up as a shelf for a food bowl etc)
This is inside the house when he first got it. He nests in the front left room and uses the potty in the back middle room nearest to the nest
Re: Scared after cage cleaning + taming issue
However,we do have other members which still might be able to help if that is the case!
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