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Old 09-13-2018, 04:22 PM   #1
RavenMouse
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Join Date: Aug 2018
Location: Rhode Island
Posts: 7
Question Is there such a thing as too big?

I want to move my hamster into my old rat cage...
The rat/ferret cage is 27 inches across, two feet tall, 17 inches deep and has a 5-inch basin at the bottom for shavings and rummaging. It has three levels plus the bottom and three big doors. The bars are small enough that my hamster, Allen can't escape and he doesn't chew the plastic basin in his current cage so it shouldn't be an issue.

Unfortunately, my rat, Dean, recently passed away on September 11 so the cage he once shared with his late brother is now empty. I washed it out and scrubbed it clean. I want to move Allen in soon and put his wheel in and a ton of hides and toys for him. He is 8 months old and has lived in a 12 by the 12-inch cage for the Summer. I know his current cage is TINY, it was a mouse cage at one point and I did not have the money to purchase a new cage when I got Allen. Allen was living in poor conditions, 12 hamsters to a ten-gallon fish tank and one water bowl and piles of lab blocks, so I had to get him quickly before he may have died. He was only ten USD, which was suspiciously cheap, and I reported the establishment I got him from to my local animal authorities. They are no longer allowed to sell or house rodents, they specialize in lizards in fish anyways.

So anyways...
Is the rat/ferret cage too big? My boy is a very friendly man and loves to climb around so I figured he would like a bigger cage, but that's all I have right now. Should I move him from the TINY cage into the HUGE cage? I don't know if too much space is a thing or not?
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Old 09-13-2018, 05:52 PM   #2
BubbyandHamper
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Location: VA, USA
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Default Re: Is there such a thing as too big?

It's perfectly fine, as a matter of fact great! The size of the cage makes great for lots and lots of toys, scatter feeding, and tunneling. Maybe even More! Bigger is better, especially when it comes to hamster housing.
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Old 09-13-2018, 06:00 PM   #3
Pebbles82
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Default Re: Is there such a thing as too big?

The height is an issue at about 60cm tall as there are fall risks for hamsters who are better with lower cages. But you can easily get round that by making a full level. It might be possibly to avoid fall risks with shelves and careful setting up but with a cage that tall I think it could really do with a full level. Hammies can climb to the roof and then just drop (they're good at climbing up but not that good at getting down and tend to just let go) - and they can bounce off the edges of shelves on the way down or land on something hard and get badly injured. They are clever in so many ways but bad at this!

You could create a full level by having two shelves at the same level and using a couple of pieces of wood across them so you only have a gap at one end for a ladder. Then have another shelf higher up, over the ladder so they can't fall down that gap.

They do much better with more floorspace and less height and the cage base isn't that large - about 68cm by 43cm. But it's ok - especially if you have the additional level to add to enrichment. You'd also want to fill the base with substrate and have a house on the substrate in the lower level (open underneath so they can bury hoards under the nest and so on).
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cage, allen, big, move, tiny, fish, current, rat/ferret, inches, basin, rat, thing, hamster, bottom, suspiciously, usd, died, cheap, ten, establishment, authorities, levels, animal, local, reported

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