nibblegrass

[Brianh96]

hey all ,

a couple of weeks ago i received 2 packets of nibblegrass from zooplus since i was buying other things and i needed to find items to rack it up to free delivery . the first pack i ruined by literally drenching it with water. i waited a couple days and absolutely nothing happened so i binned it and went onto the next pack, this time it worked so well, its growing so quickly.
my question is once its grown can you put the whole tray in the cage and let the hamster run through it and munch away, or do you have to cut the grass and put it in a bowl. i hope you can put the whole thing in as it would look great in a natural farm themed cage.

[SKB_Hamsters]

I wouldn't advise leaving the whole tray inside your hamsters cage as the nibble grass itself is safe however I would be worried about them ingesting the vermiculite (the growing medium/used instead of compost) as it unknown whether it safe or not for hamster.
Instead you can place the tray in the cage and supervise your hamster whilst enjoying it and remove it afterwards. When I had my tray of nibble grass I would cut some of and then scatter it around the cage for my girl to forage for.

[cypher]

I'm with SKB & would be dubious about leaving the vermiculite in the cage, mostly if you leave sprouts of any kind in the cage they tend to have lots of fun eating & trampling all over them so they don't last long in the cage anyway!
If you do want to try something that's safe to leave in for a short while you could try growing seeds in chinchilla sand, always monitor how much your ham eats though as they can have too much of a good thing. I generally only leave sprouts of any kind in overnight & if there's any left intact take them out & put them back in a light spot during the day.
If you want to try the sand method there's a thread here that shows you how.
Sprouts three ways!

[Pebbles82]

I also had concerns about the growing medium so instead cut a big chunk of the grass off and put in the cage. The usually love it. Once grown the nibble grass doesn't last that long, but I used to cut a chunk off every couple of days.

On another occasion I let our hammy have access to the whole tray while he was out of the cage, but he didn't seem to want to go near it! Funny little things.

[CMB]

You might want to use a smaller container and only grow a small amount at a time. I used a spare hamster food bowl.

I have also grown some in chinchilla sand.

[Pebbles82]

I tried growing some on a terracott dish and it was disaster - they didn't grow properly and the vermiculite went mouldy! So i tend to just use the plastic tray they come in, but CMB's suggestions may work.