Best cage for when we’ve tried everything!

[lozangelol]

Hi all,

I’m at my wits end a little bit here, our hamster is a chewer, and while she has a mild interest in wooden chews and dog chews, her absolute favourite thing to chew is her enclosure. She started out in a large, multi story wired cage, chewed that, so we sorted a bin cage, chewed that, she’s currently in a Detolf...chewing that.

Any suggestions on a good sized option, preferably with a bit more height than the Detolf since she does like to climb. She also very much enjoys chewing her water bottle and anything that is holding her water bottle.

She has a full sized wheel (which she won’t use if you look at her because apparently she’s self conscious), large sand bath, more chews than I can count, plenty of hides, and plenty of additional bits, she probably has more floor space relative to her size than we do in our flat!

I’ve been looking around and all the options I’ve found are either tall enough but with bars, are glass (which she does chew slightly less) but too low for her to be able to climb to her hearts content. Am I missing a really obvious cage option or is our gal just too fussy for anything currently available?

Your help is super appreciated, thank you!

[Ria P]

Do you give her plenty of out of cage time so she can run around?

You could try a water bowl instead of a bottle to stop her from chewing her bottle.

A Detolf is a big cage so maybe the cage itself is not the problem but i'm speculating because i don't have hamsters who chew their enclosures.

Could you post a photo of your set up so people can have a look and possibly come up with ideas?

[sushi_78]

Maybe a custom made glass tank? It's bound to be very expensive though.

I've ordered a custom made tank from Junglepets.co.uk. They can make them in pretty much any size, and with built in shelves for climbing.

[Pebbles82]

Is it the metal bars in the detolf she is chewing? There isn’t much else to chew in it! If so you can get a ball of sisal string and wrap the bars. Some people have found that effective. Even if she still chewed them it wouldn’t be noisy or harm her teeth. And she may give up. She sounds very active but generally they only climb to see if they can escape (or to get to something if it’s high up - eg a food bowl. They do much better without height as they are not good at getting down and tend to just drop and can injure themselves. Have you got a photo of the detolf set up? Adding enrichment - eg different substrate levels and textures- can help plus a large nesting box tgat’s dark inside - she may settle then. Cork logs are good for enrichment and something to climb over/run through. I wouldn’t encourage climbing. Our hamster likes to climb the sofa but it’s a long way to fall from the top!

[lozangelol]

Hey! I can't put a picture up right now because my laptop has given up the ghost and my phone just crashes when I try.

It's an off-brand Detolf so does have slight differences but is the same size and shape, she's chewing on the wooden sides, and has a particular interest in the hole we put in for her water bottle to go through (we've moved the water bottle into the cage and covered the hole and she's slowly gotten out of the habit of chewing that now, but it did get worse at first once it was inside the cage).

We've tried her with a water bowl but she just preferred standing in it (for animals that aren't supposed to be hugely into water, this girl loves it, sometimes I think she might actually be a puppy in disguise).

We try and get her out once a day, but she's a rescue and a little bit unsure of people still since she was treated pretty badly, we're getting there with taming but it's a slow process, but only today my partner came home with a wooden dolls house for her which she could explore outside of her cage! She enjoyed that and we made sure she was safe from dropping etc.

In terms of climbing, I've been concerned about her falling and hurting herself, but she is actually quite decent at climbing down, and either getting all the way to the bottom or only dropping once she's close to the ground, I'm trying not to overly encourage climbing but when she does seem to enjoy it I don't want to completely stop her (her current favourite thing is finding a way to climb up and sit on top of her water bottle???).

I'm thinking of perhaps getting a branded Detolf to see if that helps but I can't see why it'd be much different since it'll essentially be the same thing with some slightly different design changes, though it would be a little taller.

She's definitely an active ham but doesn't like her wheel, we've tried her with four different types/brands and she'll either go on for a little bit and get bored, or just try and get on top of it (one of the reasons we had to take her out of the bar cage!)

Sorry if this is all a bit rambly, I'm just trying to get as much info out as possible!

I'd also like to thank you all, having been involved in a few hamster communities online, Hamster Central is definitely the nicest and least judgemental! I'd be so worried on another forum that I'd be judged for any of this!!

My next idea would be some kind of completely glass tank, but obviously with the current situation I'm not really able to go to the shop and look around!! We actually have a perfectly sized fish tank but it's currently occupied by our fish (how very rude of them!) , this was a charity shop find though so can't be bought again easily! So any possible online suggestions for completely glass tanks with a bit of height to them (but not too much of course) would be greatly appreciated.

[Petite]

If she's not particularly interested in wheels, have you thought of trying a flying saucer?

As far as cages are concerned, a Detolf should be fine, and I don't think you would gain much by getting a new branded one. I'm assuming you have a lid on it, so as she likes to climb perhaps you could experiment be creating a network of higher things for her to explore - maybe a sputnik, and some long bendy bridges or whatever else you think she might enjoy.

[AmityvilleHams]

Originally Posted by Petite

If she's not particularly interested in wheels, have you thought of trying a flying saucer?

Unfortunately, flying saucers are inappropriate and don't actually replace upright wheels by any means. They don't allow for a proper natural running position(leading to side arching for example) and have significantly less running surface compared to a proper upright wheel!

[lozangelol]

Originally Posted by Petite

If she's not particularly interested in wheels, have you thought of trying a flying saucer?

As far as cages are concerned, a Detolf should be fine, and I don't think you would gain much by getting a new branded one. I'm assuming you have a lid on it, so as she likes to climb perhaps you could experiment be creating a network of higher things for her to explore - maybe a sputnik, and some long bendy bridges or whatever else you think she might enjoy.

She actually had a flying saucer which she wasn't interested in, it's strange though because she will run sometimes but the second you look at her she stop and wanders off!

Yeah I'm thinking of creating some kind of higher up tunnels etc, our old ham had a little bucket that we hung from the top of the cage that he liked climbing into, I've not been willing to use it with her because I know she'll destroy it but I'm looking into some alternatives! My main concern is she'll just chew through anything we'd use to hold anything up (string etc).

[Pebbles82]

You can use sisal string - that's safe to chew. I bet she uses her wheel at night - a lot of hamsters only use their wheels after we've gone to bed. You could put a bit of substrate on top and see if its gone in the morning. Is the wheel big enough though? For a syrian it needs to be 10 to 11" diameter ideally. If the wheel is too small her back will bend and can cause discomfort so they avoid it.

Climbing on top of things is just to find a way out. Things to look at to help her settle - is there enough substrate (4 to 6" min ideally), does she have a house/nesting box that's dark inside (a shoebox house with bendy bridge over the door will do). Do you cleanout a bit too much (spot cleaning mostly is better).