How do you clean the nest and the potty?

[Hamsterita]

Hi you all!!

The other day I was cleaning my furry's potty and probably I was being paranoid as I've just read an article about the aspergillius fungus, but I was wondering if I was cleaning his potty the right way.

In case you didn't know:

The Aspergillus fungus grows on the bedding in the area of a hamster’s tank/cage where the hamster urinates. Once it starts to develop it will appear white and in time turn black. At this stage the fungus will send off airborne spores into the hamster’s environment that can damage the hamster’s health and once symptoms are noticed the hamster must be seen by a vet immediately because there is a high risk of death from breathing in the spores of this deadly fungus

Source Aspergillus Fungus • Hamsterific!

I've also read on another source (but it's in Spanish) that it could grow on their nests.

I've seen white spots on his potty but they could be just the sand stuck to each other. I've never seen anything black (THANKFULLY)

When I clean his potty I usually don't remove the sand, I just remove the peed sand and I add more and more when needed. From time to time (maybe every month or every two months) I clean the potty itself but I left the old sand, as I don't want to remove all his scent, but maybe that's wrong. Maybe I should clean everything and bin the sand too from time to time.

So how exactly do yo do it and how often? Do you think I am doing it right?

I usually don't clean his nest. He doesn't pees in there, until now he didn't have a stash in there, so I didn't feel that it was dirty and that it needed to be cleaned. In 8 months I think that I cleaned his nest 4 times, and I did it when I changed the cages (keeping some old nesting material) and once again a while ago after his last change because I saw that the toilet paper was too stiff and I didn't like how it looked. However this last time he had a huuuuge burrow and he had tons and tons of poop mixed with the substrate in there (I spot clean every day but I didn't knew that he had a dumpster in there because he was piling a lot of poops outside his nest too), so I removed a lot of it, put new one, and then I "combed" the substrate around the nest to make sure that there weren't more poops, and I mixed all the new and old substrate together. This time he didn't like how I cleaned his nest because it was clearly that he was uncomfortable and upset. I think that I added too much new substrate, but seriously, his burrow was full of poops and it would have taken too much time to remove them every single one of them by hand.

So, again So how exactly do yo do it and how often? Do you think I am doing it right? Do you mind if you leave some poops after the clean up or you are very thoroughly about it?


Finally, do you know someone that had a ham with this disease? Do you think it is easy that this fungus grows? I thought it would be a problem of corn substrate and that kind of things, but now I can't be at ease

[BorisPasha]

That sounds quite scary. I hope I never see anything like that.

I can't say if you're doing it right or wrong as you know I'm still a newbie and I'm sure I probably don't do it right.

As for the potty, I scoop out the pee'd on sand every day and add new sand when needed. I do empty all the sand out and wash the potty/sand bath when it starts to get smelly but only with hot water. I couldn't really say with any accuracy how often I does this but maybe every 4-6 weeks. It's never seemed to bother/upset them when I do this.

I think their nests can get smelly even if they don't pee in them. Boris has a room in his house he sleeps in (he pees in the room next door, he doesn't pee in sand because he's weird!) and he likes to keep lots of poops in it too and it does start to get smelly after a while, especially if they have been hot and maybe a bit sweaty. I usually take out about half the bedding in there and bin it then add some new to the old. I don't worry about trying to get all the poops out though if there has been lots lying on the base of the cage I'll take some out.

Artie has an enclosed ceramic house (with lots of toilet paper in it) on his shelf that he sleeps in and sometimes pees in, hordes food, seed shells, poops you name it it's in there! (This is the boy though that runs on his wheel with a poop stuck to his shoulder!). I must admit I emptied the whole lot out on Monday night as it was really really stinky and gave it a wash with just hot water. I always put some shredded toilet paper in his cage every day so stuffed that back in to his house as at least it would have had his smell on it and put some food in too. He never seemed phased by it. Just went back in and sorted the tissue to how he wanted it and went to sleep. I know enclosed houses aren't the best as far as smells go but it's what he seems to like and he does have choices.

Anyway I've probably rambled on long enough without being very helpful in answering any of your questions lol. Hopefully someone experienced can come along and sort us out :P

[Pebbles82]

I used to just empty the potty every 5 days or so and wash it out in washing up liquid water, dry it and put new sand in. But it was only a potty size. If you have a sand bath as a potty then it's fine to just scoop bits out and leave it longer. You could still wash the sand container every week or two by just taking the sand out and replacing it after the container is washed. I wouldn't worry about poops

Nests - they don't really need cleaning unless pee'd in or wet.

I have had some white mouldy stuff growing on some substrate and a wood thing once, after a water bottle had leaked and I hadn't realised everything was damp for about a week. But I just removed the wood thing and that area of substrate and it was fine. Charlie was fine too.

I wouldn't worry about it to be honest

[Thin Lizzy]

I use warm water, if I have a stain then I use simple soap as it's perfume free. I buy toothbrushes and brush it over the soap and then tackle the stain/area. Toothbrushes are great for getting into those awkward bits.

[Hamsterita]

First I wanted to say that I'm sorry If I worried other people, I didn't want to cause any troubles!!

Thank you all for your answers BP, Serendipity and TL.

Now I'm more at ease about the aspergillus. I also tried to find more information about it and apparently is not a common problem, aside from some people that had problems using corn substrate I could't find anything else.

Anyway it was good to know about how you clean your hammies' pottys and nests. I took some notes.

I would like to hear more methods if anyone feels like sharing though