Help please

[Zorro]

Thankyou so much for your advice I will start this best practice going forward.


Hi. Check if there is anything sharp in the cage - which I'm sure you have. Is the running disc wood? Sometimes wood items have splinters. It seems strange it is only one foot.

With regards to the cleaning - it is far too much and will be causing stress to your hammy. Changing bedding daily is taking away her familiar scent all the time. Even weekly is too often.

The key is to have a good depth of bedding/substrate - at least 4" deep but ideally 6" or more. This does two things - it allows the hamster to burrow down in their nest, bury hoards under their nest, and even dig tunnels. It also means the cage mostly stays clean and dry for a long time, because you can just "spot clean" the pee area. Syrians usually have an area or corner of the cage where they pee - they are quite clean and tidy like that. You just spot clean that area every few days - taking oiut a handful or two of soiled substrate and replace it with a couple of handfuls of new and mix it in a bit so it still smells familiar. A litter tray is your friend! You can get corner litter trays - put chinchilla bathing sand in - and put that in the pee corner/area and your hammy will use it. Then you just empty the litter tray every few days. They tend not to pee anywhere else, except the wheel sometimes. Don't worry about poops unless there start to be a lot of them around. They are not dirty or smelly - quite hard - they eat them sometimes, which is normal - they have two stomachs and can redigest vitamins and nutrients from their poops. They sometimes hoard some poops as well (emergency food supplies!).

So it's a balance between hygiene and allowing the hamster normal behaviours. Too much hygiene is an invasion of their territory and will lead to abnormal behaviours. We have to curb our human instincts to clean everything and work around the hamster's needs.

Most of the substrate will stay clean and dry for a long time and is fine to be left. Unless the nest or hoard is pee'd on they can also be left until you change the substrate. And even then it is better to replace some of the clean old substrate - spread it on top of the new so the environment still smells familiar to the hamster. Also don't clean everything at the same time. So if you do a substrate change,don't clean anything else at that time - do the wheel a different week, and any other items a different week again - so something always smells familiar. They scent mark everything so they can find their way around easily (they don't see well at all) and also to mark their territory. So if all the scent is removed regularly you will have a stressed hamster. Stress lowers their immune system and they're more prone to infections and illnesses then.

Torn up strips of plain white toilet material is best for nesting as it's safe - if you put a pile of that in the cage somewhere (not actually inside the house) they will forage for it and pouch it and take it back to keep refurbishing their nest. Just keep topping it up as it goes down. A baby hamster may pee in the nest the odd time, but they tend to grow out of that quite quickly. Obviously if it is pee'd in it needs removing, but try and leave a little bit of it behind that is dry - even if it's slightly whiffy. And they'll rebuild it from the toilet paper strips. Same with the hoard. If the hoard is pee'd on then it will need removing - but always put new food back in exactly the same place - they are very precious about their hoards and can start peeing on them to deter people stealing them! Then it becomes a vicious circle for a while. If the hoard is dry it can be left for quite some time. I tend to just remove the bottom half of it when I change the substrate,as that is the oldest food and the hoards can get quite big. Dry hamster mix is fine left for some time in a hoard. They tend to eat fresh food straight away rather than hoard it but you'll find out over time whether your hammy does this or not.

A good idea is to have a house with a lift off roof - then you can check inside sometimes (not too often or they might move out of the house) -and can see if there's any fresh food lying around - if so you can remove it so it doesn't go off (veg etc). It also means you don't have to take the house out to see inside so the nest doesn't fall apart.

I never really remove our hamsters nests. They stay clean and dry. Hamsters wash themselves regularly and are quite clean little things generally apart from their pee.

The pads of their feet are quite delicate - I reckon it might be something to do with the running disc or splinters on something your hammy walks on.[/QUOTE]