Cleaning Advice Needed

[Van Diemen]

Hey everyone,

I am planning on giving Teddy's cage it's first ever full clean out tonight.

I'm going to pop Teddy in his ball and leave him with my mum so he can't see what's going on and get stressed out.

I want to take everything out of his cage and give it a wipe down with some pet friendly disinfectant I got from the pet store.
Replace all the wood shavings with fresh ones.
Sort through his food store and reduce it by removing anything nasty.
And replace some of his bedding.

I know about keeping most of the bedding as it will be a comfort to him because it will smell familiar - but I was also wondering -

After i've wiped down the shelves and everything - could I get a hand full of the soiled wood shavings and rub it around on the surfaces? Just to replace the natural smell a bit for him.

I just really want to make it as stress free as possible for him.

I had a little play time with him last night and my heart melted all over again - he was an absolute angel last night and cheered me up so much.
So now i'm really worried about upsetting him and possibly setting him backwards in his taming.

Any advice at all would be hugely appreciated as i've never had to do this before lol.

[Lougarry]

Personally, I never replace all the substrate, but keep as much as I can of the used stuff. I just discard wet clumpy shavings and keep most of the rest. I even keep a few poos

[cathface]

I don't do 100% clean outs either. the other day when I was doing a big clean out (as opposed to the spot cleans of the toilet areas), I used a cat litter/food scoop and discarded all the wee bits and also about half of the rest of the substrate (just the upper layers and any bits of poo I could see). I used a pet-friendly disinfectant wipe to go over the pee areas, then I just refilled with fresh shavings and mixed that in with the old shavings. didn't touch the bedding. I change bedding at different times to the substrate to minimise upsetting Hamburglar. with bedding I just take out half of it and replace with clean shredded loo roll. this way, the Ham never completely loses his scent in his tank!

[racinghamster]

Same here. I never do full cage cleans and my two (Boris the syrian and Rocky the robo!) stay in their cages while I clean around them! What fun that is!! Although if I have to use my pet cleaner, I remove the hamster until I have wiped the corner or the surface off. But I only really do this with my syrian as he has a `pee corner` that gets stained, so needs cleaning every few days and fresh substrate added after a wipe down. I used to do full cage cleans a while back, but I don`t bother now because I feel keeping most of the substrate as it is and just taking away a handful here and a handful there is adequate. It also retains the hamsters scent and doesn`t expose them to fresh phenols (if shavings are used) too often.

It works for the hamster and it also saves money. Although saving money isn`t the object, it`s more about keeping stress levels down and reducing the sudden changes that full cage cleans can have, especially if you happen to have a new hamster or a very timid one.

[Hammymad]

I "used" to do full cage cleans weekly,until I read about spot cleaning on here and it works out much better,as they don't get stressed now.I just remove any soiled bedding/shavings and clean their pottys 2 times a week as they can get abit smelly!

Like Racing said,theres the added bonus of saving a little bit of money too xx

[Charley101]

I spot clean my hams every other day and will only change a certain amount of aubiose at a time when its time for a clean. Mylo is soo easy to spot clean as he only wees in his potty

[Van Diemen]

Thanks for the advice guys!

I thought a full clean out once a month was needed lol. I've had Teddy almost 4 weeks now and have been spot cleaning his cage every few days but it's looking a tad sorry for it's self at the moment.

I'll just do a more thorough spot clean tonight rather than a full one

Is it ok to disrupt his nest??

When I spot clean I always move it around a bit so I can get to his store of food to check it but i've never totally rearranged it.

I would like to remove most of the substrate from his nest as he puts all his food underneath it. He took a pancake into it a few days ago so I need to make sure I get it all out if he hasn't eaten it lol.

I don't think any of his bedding needs to go though - his nest is a little pyramid.

B E D D I N G
SUBSTRATE
FOOD

lol - would that be ok?

[Charley101]

I have to clean all the hams nest out every so often as the tissue starts looking a bit 'yucky' and i get worried as that is where they are sleeping I change the tissue once a week and remove all the bits of food that doesn't look too great

[Lougarry]

I do remove yellowing tissue and add clean in a pile in the middle of the cage.

Van Diemen, I'm sure that will be fine. Plenty of people do full weekly cage cleans with no problems, and if you leave most of his substrate he'll be a happy little ham and start bustling about, rebuilding his nest.

[StarlightSerenity]

I take out everything but keep back a handful of substrate and nesting material which get put in with the new stuff. Luna never seems stressed after. Luna's cage gets cleaned every two weeks (ish).