Nerd cage recommendations for Houdini hammy - Page 2

Pebbles82 · 03-12-2019, 02:28 PM

It's better than nothing but I'd get it replaced within 3 or 4 days max really. It'll be uncomfortable for her and get her stressed sooner or later. How do you mean when you say she covered her normal wheel? Climbed it?

Caity · 03-13-2019, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serendipity7000

It's better than nothing but I'd get it replaced within 3 or 4 days max really. It'll be uncomfortable for her and get her stressed sooner or later. How do you mean when you say she covered her normal wheel? Climbed it?

I mean she's a messy hammy and when I pushed the substrate to one end and put the wheel on the bottom of the cage, she burried it by morning. I tried putting barriers like bendy bridges and she still trashed the place by morning. Always wake up with everything half covered, I'm sure there's some old chews deep in there somewhere.

Pebbles82 · 03-13-2019, 11:06 AM

She sounds like a very busy active hamster! That is fairly normal behaviour though - I would just put her old wheel back in. You can always clear the substrate away from it each evening. It sounds like she is building a mountain up the front of the wheel that she can climb up, to get to the top - so she seems quite determined to escape.

With the wheel on the base of the cage, if she climbed on top of it, could she reach the lid?

Caity · 03-14-2019, 12:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serendipity7000

She sounds like a very busy active hamster! That is fairly normal behaviour though - I would just put her old wheel back in. You can always clear the substrate away from it each evening. It sounds like she is building a mountain up the front of the wheel that she can climb up, to get to the top - so she seems quite determined to escape.

With the wheel on the base of the cage, if she climbed on top of it, could she reach the lid?

No, she can't reach the lid if it's on the floor. I bought the saucer for now anyways which should be delivered today and yeah, she's very active haha.

Pebbles82 · 03-14-2019, 04:08 AM

Excellent - she should enjoy that - when she gets the hang of it! It doesn't take them long to get used to running in it properly. I would try and give her time to settle in her old cage again now she can't escape. It might be an idea to start from scratch - as if it's a new cage - and give her a good two weeks to settle. ie leave her alone for a couple of days apart from putting food out and doing the water bottle. And don't do anything in her cage for the next couple of weeks - other than spot cleaning every 5 days or longer - if needed or emptying a litter tray. Adding the odd new thing should be ok as long as you don't move things around or take things out.

Not sure what kind of house she has but it could be an idea to add a shoe box house. Cut the base out of a shoe box, and cut a hole for a door at one end of the long side - about 6cm diameter hole. Then put it on top of the substrate. Keep the lid on as a lift off roof so in future you can check inside. If you have a bendy bridge, put that over the doorway so it makes it dark inside - and she can climb onto the roof of the house via the bendy bridge so the roof makes a low platform. She shouldn't be able to reach the top from the house roof, but if you're worried about that, you could push it down into the substrate so it's part underground (channel out a bit of substrate in front of the door so she finds the entrance).

She may settle with a large dark house to retreat to. Or she may chew it up! I would also try scatter feeding as well as putting food in her bowl - to keep her occupied foraging.

Put a big pile of torn up strips of plain white toilet paper somewhere in the cage and she'll probably move into the shoebox house and take the paper to build a new nest. Don't take her old house out when you put the new one in though. Let her decide to move into the new house (she probably will if it's dark and large).

If you use a litter tray, put that inside the shoe box house (assuming the shoe box is large enough that it fits) in the back corner at the end where the entrance is. They tend to nest furthest away from the door where it's darkest - and they will often move their pee spot inside the house if the house is large enough - but in a corner of the house away from the nest. So she should use the litter tray.

Ongoing you can empty the litter tray every few days by taking the lid off the house so you don't need to remove the house and her nest doesn't fall apart.

Generally ongoing, avoid cleaning out too regularly - just spot clean soiled areas or empty the litter tray. One thing that drives them frantic is if you mess with their hoard or their nest. Dry hoard is ok left for quite some time - and you can just prune it a bit when you eventually do a substrate change but always try and leave some of the old hoard behind, that smells familiar and is clean - and add a bit of new food as well, in exactly the same place, if you remove any hoard.

If she doesn't pee in her nest that should stay clean and dry so best to leave it alone but keep putting extra torn up strips of plain white toilet paper out in the cage somewhere in a pile and she'll keep taking some to refurbish her nest.

Sorry if you know all that already! So let her settle down a bit and then have a think about whether she needs a different cage.