Cleaning Home

[Chubbs]

Hi

Our new little fella is only with us three days, he seems to be settling in ok and has chosen his own home in corner of cage, which he is also using as toilet, though seems to wee in another corner also

We are wanting him to settle in as well as possible, should we be cleaning his bed daily if he is using as a toilet. I have read they dont like their bed/store messed with. Confused as to what is best for them clean area or happy hamster?

I also read cage should be cleaned weekly, does this include sleeping area? Would that hinder the settling in process or will he have more fun rearranging his new bedding?

[Biyu]

ATM with my smaller then small cage I try to do a 100% clean she seems fine with it

I've heard some people with larger cages only spot clean as needed and don't do 100% cleans but I'm no pro here

[HorseyMandz]

The cage shouldn't be cleaned weekly as this causes too much stress. It should be 'spot cleaned' (bedding changed in 'sections' and any really dirty bedding cleaned... maybe a 5th of the cage each time) about once a week, and fully cleaned and disinfected (with petsafe disinfectant) once every month to six weeks. You shouldn't clean him out at all while he is still settling in because that will hinder the process

Has he got a sand bath? If so, move a little of the soiled bedding over to that every day for a week or so and he should start to use it as a potty and you can then just sieve that regularly and clean the cage less often

A happy hamster is better than a clean area (within reason), but it's finding a balance between the two that is important!

[Kissa]

The larger the cage, the longer you can go between full cleans -- I've heard of some people going six months between full cleans, but they have absolutely enormous cages and spot clean regularly, so it works out.

Hamsters actually naturally have pee areas in their burrows in the wild, so peeing in his house is a completely natural behaviour that you might not be able to train out of him. If he has a plastic house, I'd remove it and replace it with a wooden one with no floor, so the pee soaks down in to the substrate rather than sitting around in the plastic I'd also make sure the house is quite large, so that he can have an area to pee and an area to sleep in if he wants. Some people even provide multi chambered houses complete with little toilet for this

[kyrilliondaemon]

Yeah... Cleaning weekly definetly isn't required.

I'd see what works best for you, but we usually spot clean almost all the time instead of doing full cage cleans. We do full cage cleans happily if there's a reason but if there's no need to change it all then we don't really see the point.
Spot cleaning is cheaper, easier and less stress on the hams.

Our Scamp is one who's been at least six months since a full clean now. She has one of the biggest cages I know of though, and we do spot clean reguarly.
Fwirl on the other hand was in the same situation as Scamp but may have developed an allergy to her usual substrate so got a very prompt change to another cage - we hope to get her back in her usual cage by the end of Tuesday (when we get a big delivery of loads more substrate and should have had the time to dismantle and rebuild her hutch to be sure its 100% free of her old substrate).
Both Scamp and Fwirl are syrians by the way. Our dwarf hams have 100cm by 50cm cages and are also usually only spot cleaned.

[Chubbs]

Thanks for the advice and info...

Is it not safe to use soap and water to clean cages?

We cleaned parts of his sleeping area we thought was a bit too dirty and he has now discarded the bedding that was disturbed, we put some clean tissues in and he immediately started to use that

[StarlightSerenity]

It's best to use pet safe disinfectant for cleaning cages, something like this Johnsons Clean n Safe Small Animal Disinfectant 500ml | Monster Pet Supplies - Johnsons Clean n Safe Small Animal Disinfectant 500ml at 100% Guaranteed Low Prices in UK

[Kissa]

Theoretically you can use soap, as long as you rinse it reeeeeally well afterwards. In practise, I'd recommend a pet safe disinfectant like StarlightSerenity linked