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Old 02-17-2008, 09:46 AM   #1
Gust0o
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Default Digging? Windscreen wiping? A solution?

I put this up in the "Show your cages" thread, but I thought it might be worth sharing here.

This is Dave, my lone Roborovskii's cage - I've grabbed some different views, so you can get an idea.

Dave is a very small, very nervous little Robo - tame, but not overly fond of the outside world. She likes some safe space, so I've made sure she has plenty.

Here's the bottom of the cage, showing the burrows I've made for her - the one on the left is simply a u-turn tunnel, but the one on the right leads to another nest, where I hide treats

Main shredded paper nest is top left.



Dave used to be quite keen on digging - "stereotyped behaviour", as I've since discovered - whereby she was digging, because her nature compelled her to do, in the absence of an existing burrow. This is something a lot of small animals, new to domestication, suffer from - most commonly gerbils.

The suggestion is, perhaps - if you give them a burrow, the compulsion will disappear, just as it does in the wild.

I've had some amazing success putting these in - as well as adding a healthy depth of bedding to the base, for her to use as she wishes - and the behaviour has completely disappeared!

Obviously, I'm very, very happy with how things have turned out - and I thought I'd share it with you all, see if it helps elsewhere.

And, lastly, a sleepy little Dave emerging from her burrow!

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Old 02-20-2008, 10:52 AM   #2
daffee
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Default

That's a nice idea.

Have certainly noticed that robos like digging/tunnelling. Our 2 have a load of carefresh for bedding and on top of that we shove in a handful of shredded paper in their main nest. By clean out their nest is a solid mass of bedding with a hole in the middle (they can often be seen poking their heads out the top or side) and they build up mounds of bedding against the side of the cage (very glad they live in a duna) so they can burrow in that.

They get toilet roll tubes as well but had never thought to actually place them under the bedding.
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