Hamster house always smells bad!

[OnyxRissen]

I'm new to Hamster Central, so I apologize if this is under the wrong section, but I really need help! I got a new fancy bear hamster a week ago and his name is Scooby. His cage smells bad very often. It has about two or so inches of Care Fresh bedding in it and I spot clean it twice a day, but the smell of urine is killing me. He doesn't even pee in the same spot; he keeps switching around and he even urinated on the top platform of his cage where there was no bedding! I put some there afterwards, but this is really bothering me. I love him and I don't want his cage to smell bad for him, I want him to be happy. I might just be a bit compulsive about it, but I'd appreciate any tips to make his cage fresher. I'm going to give it a full clean down in a few days.

[velma]

Hi. Welcome to the forum. A couple of things I'd say first off is try and add an extra inch or more of Carefresh - they love to dig. And the more you spot clean the more he'll get stressed that the human pee thief is stealing his scent and he will mark more Dwarf hamsters can be a pain to litter train (I have a robo who pees anywhere) but Syrian hamsters are very clean and usually like to pee in one place so it makes them easy to spot clean very few days. You can try and litter train them to a corner of your choice by giving them something like a dish or a biscuit jar filled with chinchilla sand (not dust) or children's playsand that you've sterilised by baking in the oven. Take a bit of the pee'd on substrate and place in the jar and remove the rest from the cage. If you keep this up, with a bit of luck he should figure that's his potty and go there all the time.

[racinghamster]

Hi. How big is his cage/tank and does he have a large enough sleeping box? Your substrate is fine and is absorbent. Hamsters in general `like` their own smell and velma is right about cleaning too often. Your doing the right thing by spot-cleaning though and not fully emptying what he considers his domain, his castle!

Depending on your cage size, I recommend getting hold of a shoe box or equivalent size of cardboard box, turn it upside down so it has no floor as hamsters dig into their substrate beneath. Add plenty of ripped up plain white toilet paper as nesting (NOT kitchen towel as it doesn`t deteriorate the same even when wet) and he will love this to nest with. It`s very safe too and cheaper than the shop bought stuff that is sometimes made up of unsafe strands or lengths.

Wipe the cage with wetted kitchen towel and warm water if he urinates on shelving. Easy. No need for sprays or scented cleaners as these irritate. The less is more rule applies here really but I would also say that you need to perhaps get used to his smell as long as it doesn`t overpower your room! But your using a very absorbent substrate which holds moisture well anyway. x

[charcobain]

My hamster would do this when I first got him, pee'd everywhere and all over his wheel, after he had settled in and knew his surroundings were his, he wouldn't pee everywhere and chose certain corners, probably just marking his territory, cleaning it all the time will stress him so try adding more substrate!

[cypher]

I generally find it takes them a while to pick on one spot too, if you can it is generally better to clean as little as possible for a while & then your ham should begin to settle on using one place then you can try litter training which usually works with most syrians & russians.

[Pebbles82]

This cleaning video by Erin's Hamsters is good! I found it helped a lot. I would put much deeper substrate in - makes spot cleaning easier. 4 to 6 inches if you can. And use a potty tray with chinchilla sand in. Put a bit of smelly substrate on top of it to encourage him to use it. As the others say, if you clean and disturb too often he'll just wee on things more to scent mark them! With deeper substrate the wee doesn't go down to the bottom of the cage and it's less disruptive taking the odd handful out.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...+cleaning+tips

[Bertiebobbins]

Both my Syrian/"teddy bear" hamsters are potty trained, but while one of them is clean, tidy and you can never smell him even when his potty is in need of a change, the other one is a bit of a stinky little fellow! He was a bit harder to toilet train (he had four potties at one stage) as to start with he would go anywhere - in his house, on his food, in his wheel, various other places he decided would make a nice toilet.... Even now he is toilet trained and just has two potties which he uses quite faithfully, if the room ever smells a bit hamstery it's always coming from him, even if his cage is clean! So some hams are just a bit smellier than others. also, I found the smell was hard to locate at times - once I cleaned everywhere I knew he was going and it still smelled, then I discovered he was peeing on his beloved wheel because he was too excited to get off it to pee! Same as has been said for other hamsters, he seemed to grow out of it as he settled in and now just uses his toilets.