Dwarf Hamster Cage Substrate Advice

[hobnobpop]

Hi everyone.

I am new here.

I recently randomly adopted a 9 week old dwarf hybrid hamster who I believe is a girl and we have named her Poot. She was being given away on Facebook by someone who's child didn't like her, so I took her in, sort of temporarily but now I have decided to keep her.

I managed to snag an Ikea deltof cabinet for free locally, and bought a piece of wood that fits perfectly on the top, and drilled lots of holes in it for ventilation. It is working well.

Inside the cage I have 1/4 dedicated to her burrowing area, with about 15 - 20 litres of small select natural bedding. The rest of the cage has some sort of mix of similar bedding and some hay.

I have bought her a large wheel so her back isn't curved, she has a sand bath area, and I feed her a mix of standard hamster mix, science select pellets, dried mealworms (she loves these) and then I have bought her supplementary foraging mix from Etsy, some apple wood sticks and a few other little treats that she gets now and again.

I will need to think of giving her enclosure a little clean soon, and wanted to provide her with a few different substrates to enjoy.

Obviously the bulk of it will be the soft bedding, with a sandy bath area, but what other substrates are safe to use.

The bedding she came with was petsathome wood shavings and from the research I've done it is pine which I believe isn't suitable for hamsters.

I was going to give her a soil area but read that it is prone to growing mould - although I only thought of giving her a small section with soil.

Any other ideas? Cork granules? Aspen shavings?

Thank you!

[cloudy]

Hello and welcome. It is lovely you have rescued Poot. She sounds adorable. Your set up sounds amazing. I recommend watching a youtuber called Victoria Rachael. I have learned so much from her.

[Ria P]

Hello and welcome to HC!

Congratulations to your new family member.

I'd recommend cutting out a couple of panels of the lid, drill holes around it and mesh it from the outside by fastening them with cable ties or alternatively, you can staple the mesh down.
Holes alone do not provide sufficient ventilation.

You only need to spot clean in a cage of that size. Substrate changes only upset a hamster by removing their scent.

Kaytee clean and cozy is a good substrate and Carefresh is widely used as well. People also use Aspen in parts of the cage but some hamsters can be allergic to it.

Hamsters don't need hay but in can be used in small quantities as enrichment, just make sure to freeze it for a week first and remove any sharp bits.

There are all sorts of enrichment products available on etsy like coco soil, beech chips etc and sold in small quantities which you could place in a shallow container in case your hamster doesn't like it or reacts to it. You could do the same with Aspen to try it out.

Sprays and millets are popular with hamsters especially dwarfs and every hamster likes a whimzee chew like the xs toothbrush.

[otto]

Originally Posted by hobnobpop

Hi everyone.

I am new here.

I recently randomly adopted a 9 week old dwarf hybrid hamster who I believe is a girl and we have named her Poot. She was being given away on Facebook by someone who's child didn't like her, so I took her in, sort of temporarily but now I have decided to keep her.

I managed to snag an Ikea deltof cabinet for free locally, and bought a piece of wood that fits perfectly on the top, and drilled lots of holes in it for ventilation. It is working well.

Inside the cage I have 1/4 dedicated to her burrowing area, with about 15 - 20 litres of small select natural bedding. The rest of the cage has some sort of mix of similar bedding and some hay.

I have bought her a large wheel so her back isn't curved, she has a sand bath area, and I feed her a mix of standard hamster mix, science select pellets, dried mealworms (she loves these) and then I have bought her supplementary foraging mix from Etsy, some apple wood sticks and a few other little treats that she gets now and again.

I will need to think of giving her enclosure a little clean soon, and wanted to provide her with a few different substrates to enjoy.

Obviously the bulk of it will be the soft bedding, with a sandy bath area, but what other substrates are safe to use.

The bedding she came with was petsathome wood shavings and from the research I've done it is pine which I believe isn't suitable for hamsters.

I was going to give her a soil area but read that it is prone to growing mould - although I only thought of giving her a small section with soil.

Any other ideas? Cork granules? Aspen shavings?

Thank you!

Hi! The small pet select bedding is really great and fantastic at holding burrows, so i’d say keep that in there for sure. My boy has 12inches of the stuff throughout his cage and nothing can stop him! Though I should mention i’ve never tried the natural one, so if you find that a little harder you have the option of the white one- which is the only bedding i’ll ever go for here on out. Much softer than carefresh, and cheaper too. You can go for aspen shavings, yes. I brought the small pet select ones, but they’re quite large shavings. If you just want to add them to a small section of the cage, i’d buy some reptile aspen as this has been cut down much finer and is softer on little paws. (This however is too expensive to buy in bulk for use throughout the whole habitat.) I also recommend coconut fibre, but you must mist this every now and again to ensure it doesn’t get too dusty. And yep, cork granules are great as well! Finally you can also sprinkle some orchard grass or soft timothy hay over some of the bedding you have for extra texture, and you can also add layers of this in between your bedding for extra burrow stability.

Hope this helps!