Cage Cleaning?

[4Taylor20]

So dos has a huge cage and he doesnt even pee in the bedding, only in his wheel. And on me as i was just typing this. How often do i need to clean it? i ruffle the bedding every few days so its not packed down.. it takes half of a bag of bedding for the cage, and i cant buy that every 3 weeks ._.

[CPalmer]

My habitat is also very big and takes alot of substrate. I find that I spot clean her wet places daily, and every few days take all the substates from that section and under her house (as that's where she flings her poop) to get up any hidden nastys. Otherwise I do as you do, agitate the rest of the substrate (Which in our case is 90% of the habitat!) if Freya hasn't already dug it all up.

My hemp I use is good for 12 weeks, then it can start to break down. It's all down to the hammy and their habits. If they stick to a couple of spots (mine has the corner of her larder and her sand bath) to pee in, then it's easy to keep it clean and fresh. If the hammy pees willy nilly then it's easier to pick up everything to check for new spots x

[Angie B]

Skittle doesn't have that much substrate as he tends to stuff it all in his tubes and then get stuck (that was quite scary; good job I hadn't gone to bed!) so we give him enough to stay warm and cosy (and it is a fair bit) but not too much, so cleaning him out is cheap for us. I try and remember to take out the wet patches daily or every other day, but he poops everywhere - and I mean everywhere - so I can't "poo pick" so to speak. Therefore, once a week I empty his cages completely, spray everything, bin all substrate/food stashes/poo etc and give him fresh substrate (carefresh). I only leave the bedding/substrate in his tubes/tunnels and when I cleaned him out last night I left it in his bed chamber too as it looked relatively clean i.e. not much poo in there. Once put back in his spotlessly clean cages (he has 2 joined together by tubes) he did kinda run about as though to say "where's it all gone?!" but he soon settled once he found the yummy treats scattered about (a generous pinch of dried mealworm/fruit/veg mix) and he's currently fast asleep in his little pink house, having moved from his tunnel, having moved from his bed chamber ... honestly, I wish I had so many places to choose to snooze in, haha.

[itswendy]

Have you tried aspen shavings? If you buy in bulk (about 2000 cubic in. for $10) it's soo much cheaper than brands like carefresh or kaytee c&c. I used to use carefresh and it wasn't even that nice, it kept compressing itself down and it smelled like earwax

[Pebbles82]

Has he got a toilet tray? That might stop him peeing in his wheel. Charlie has never pee'd in his wheel, but he does poo in it. he pees in his toilet tray and nowhere else in the cage, which is great! he's got so used to it he's even started covering the toile tray with substrate after he has pee'd in it.

I would think you would only need to spot clean and change the top 1/3 of the substrate every 3 or 4 weeks, but you might need to clean the wheel more often if he pees in it. After I've cleaned the wheel Charlie won't use it at first, but someone suggested putting a treat in it and that did the trick.

[4Taylor20]

i got him sand but it clumped really bad and he started eating it so i took it away, same with my robo