Peeing in his bed!

[SirLawrence]

Hello,

My Syrian Lawrence has started peeing in his nest. He had always been fantastic at using his sand box as a loo and still goes there aswel. I changed his substrate to Fitch in January and since then he has been stuffing his house to the brim. The peeing in his nest didn't start after a cage clean and I hadn't been poking in his nest at all.

The nest is quite smelly and I'm finding it impossible to pick out all the soiled pieces of fitch without disturbing his nest considerably which I know will only annoy him and could cause him urinate more!!

Behaviour wise he is in fantastic form. He is active and eating and drinking as normal.

Does anyone have any advise?

Thanks!

[Pebbles82]

Just remove the wet bedding in his nest and leave some of the dry nest behind and put some strips of torn up white toilet paper out in the cage so he can rebuild the nest. He might stop doing it if he realises you take his nest away How old is he?

[Drago]

I agree with serendipity, I'd move the soiled bedding to the desired toilet area, and replace it with more Fitch/toilet tissue. It's just important you try your best to prevent him from lying on it, as too much exposure to soiled bedding can cause ammonia burns. Best wishes

[Thin Lizzy]

I agree too. Hopefully, he'll grow out of it.

[Pebbles82]

How old is he? One thing I found when I gave Charlie a bigger house and he stuffed it full of Fitch was, when the house was bigger he moved his pee corner inside the house - to the corner of the house opposite the nest. So I moved his litter tray inside the house into that corner and he carried on using it. So if this becomes a habit with Lawrence, maybe the thing to do is pop a bigger house over the top of his nest and move his potty into the house. The Germans use houses with rooms and litter trays in - so I think if the house is big enough they do like an ensuite bathroom You could make a shoebox house which would be a good size for both a nest and a corner litter tray.

When I did it, Charlie had a guinea pig sized house and this corner litter tray which fitted in nicely

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Houses-Ha...=Hamster+potty

He then decided the house wasn't big enough for his hoard as well and started hoarding in his potty, so I got him an even bigger house! With room for nest, hoard and potty. He loved that. The house was huge though (Rodipet labyrinth house) so it needs a large cage to fit in. You could make one out of cardboard boxes though, to the size and shape you want.

[JLPrairie]

I agree, but as an extra suggestion you could also use tissue boxes as a hideaway! They're huge and, of your hamster is feeling a bit bored it doubles as a chewing toy.

[SirLawrence]

Thanks everyone!

Serendipity, from my calculations of how old he was when we got him Lawrence just had his first birthday, so not a young pup but he is not showing any other signs of age. He still climbs up the side of the cage to get our attention when we don't notice that he is asking to be let out. Maybe middle age is starting to hit him and getting up to go to the loo in the middle of the day is a bit of an effort.

Thanks for the suggestions for the house and the corner potty. It looks like it would fit in neater than tupperware.