Critter Trail and Wood House

philsand · 01-04-2018, 12:52 PM

My wife had hamsters a young girl and suddenly decided she wanted one again, I never had them before and thought it would be fun.
We adopted our boy Rudy (Syrian) about 1.5 months ago and it has been quite the ride. We started out with a 10 gallon aquarium with a wheel and a metal cage on top with ramps. After a week we decided that was not enough room for him and purchased a 40 gallon tank, which gives him what appears to be enough room to roam around and he occasionally digs into the substrate to sleep.

Based on some online forums we purchased the Critter Trail products and have created what we view as a huge problem. He no longer uses his house and sleeps in the large Critter Trail blue bubble which sits on top of the long or curved tubes. He loves it up there and brings his food and bedding in his pouches and makes himself very comfortable. Unfortunately, he also poops and pees up there. He pees away from where he sleeps and the poop is not mixed in with where he sleeps. However, for him to be there it requires us to clean his sleeping quarters every day due to the pee/poop. So, we are wondering if others have had this experience and what they did. We don’t want to remove the Critter Trail because he likes is so much but are thinking we have to have him use his house instead. Any thoughts/ideas about this would be greatly appreciated.

SKB_Hamsters · 01-07-2018, 06:47 AM

Hello and Welcome to Hamster Central
Do you have a photo of where he sleeping? As I don’t have any experience with critter trails so don’t know what the blue bubble is.
I would either recommend removing the blue bubble completely or moving it into his main cage to use as his house. Although this may cause him to start to sleep, pee and poo in the tubes if this does happen then I would advise removing the tubes, but I would try moving the blue bubble part first.
You can also try a sandbath as a litter tray some Syrians will naturally decide to pee in a sand bath and can be quite easy to train to use the sand instead - best to use Chinchilla sand (not dust) or sterilised children’s play sand in a square or rectangular ceramic dish

CMB · 01-07-2018, 07:40 AM

How about having him live in just the 40 gallon tank and using the critter trail as part of playtime?

philsand · 01-08-2018, 12:35 PM

I attempted to send a URL with a photo of the blue bubble but my post was denied for whatever reason. So, thank you both for your replies, we have removed the entire Critter Trail from his living area and will use it for a play area when we have him out and about the house. Take care!