Thanks for your really quick and detailed replies AmityvilleHams and Serendipity! That's very reassuring. So many ideas, thank you! I had already started the cleaning
though.
@Serendipitiy7000, you replied to my post before when I was all so upset when Mr. Crumble died (and he was only about 7 or 8 months old). Ever since then I have been wondering about mistakes on my side. With Cookie, my daughter and I constantly worry about every little detail and I had already planned to see the vet today as I'm so concerned about his weight and his fur (he basically looks a bit thinner than when we initially got him but hasn't lost any weight according to the scales) and I thought maybe he's got parasites.
With the hoard: I just wonder, there must be a point when you have to clear out the hoard? I've only noticed then (worried again
) that Cookie seems to hardly eat anything! Everything (in particular all the things I thought were treats like the peanuts) seems to be in his hoard! He eats all the fresh stuff (he also had some chicken last week and I checked his nest the next day) the same day. Also he prefers scatter feeding and takes the occasional treat from our hands but apart from sunflower seeds I wouldn't be able to tell you whether he eats anything else from his hamster mixture! So here's another question: how much does a hamster actually eat? And drink? As I hardly every see him drinking any more (neither from the bottle nor the bowl). He also doesn't really touch the food in his bowl. If I don't intervene his hoard surely will be pushing him out of his sleeping corner!
My daughter, for some reason, moved his gnawing toothbrush a few inches twice in one evening and the next time Cookie had pulled it back onto his hoard, he left a big pile of droppings on top of it
. I thought the message was clear
. For this time I kept a part of his hoard and will put it back into his "new" nest. The only reason I feel I have to clean the cage every two weeks is because of the bathing sand that does end up at the bottom of the cage and I do worry about mites.
We'll be going on holiday for two weeks and we booked him into a pet boarding place (part of a pet store). Unfortunately they said they would clean the cages once every week and also disinfect them. I hope I can convince them not to do anything else apart from changing the sand in the toilet and occasional spot cleaning (they claimed they do it daily). I wonder whether it's for general safety reasons as they board quite a few guinea pigs, rabbits etc. but I do worry about the stress level and prepare myself for the worst. Unfortunately most friends are on holiday themselves during that time or didn't want to committ for two weeks.