I feel so bad

[Sefka]

Harvey loves crawling though tubes. When he's out playing, they're his favourite. When I got him the Barney cage I thought it would be great that I could fit all these tubes in there for him to play with.

Anyway, he started nesting in them. I took the smaller plastic tubes out and attached the big tube to the ceiling with string. It was stable enough to run through, but I was hoping it was too wobbly to nest in. But no, he moved his nest there. I thought maybe it wasn't such a big deal so I left him there for a few days. But this evening when I cleaned him out, the bedding I pulled from the tube was kind of damp and gross. So reluctantly I took the last tube out.

Now Harvey's back in his cage. He's stuffed his cheeks with bedding and food and is running from end to end of his cage looking for his tube. I feel awful. Was it such a problem him nesting in his tube? He has a wooden house thing, which he abandoned in favour of the tubes. I've added a half-shoe box and put bedding in both. He also has the house that came with the cage but he's been using that as his bathroom. That's three possible nesting places, but he's still desperately searching for his tube. Should I put it back?

[cypher]

You've done the right thing removing the tube, it really is very unhealthy for them to nest in them, it might take him a little while to settle down & make a new nest but if you just leave him to it he'll be fine & sort it out for himself, better a little stress now than health problems later.

[Sefka]

Aw thanks. I was feeling super guilty last night watching him run around with his cheeks all stuffed and looking really stressed. But he did eventually settle down and when I got in from work this evening, he came out to say hi like normal and now he's back in his bed.