[Coco61]

Never clean out the whole cage at once. Seriously. Rely on spot cleaning where he pee's when your new little one arrives. S/he will spend time rubbing their own scent all around the cage to make it home. That will help the settling in. So there is no need to touch anything for weeks. Just the wet areas every 2/3 days. If you then do an entire cage change clean, youremove everything that has made it home. They rely on their familiar scent/smell and removing that is extremely stressful. It will send everything back to the beginning. It simply is not necesssary. If you want to do a clean after a few weeks, keep any of the fitch that is not soiled to reuse and mix it with new to return to the cage. That keeps the familiar scent and reduces the stress caused by a clean. Keep an eye on the hoard of food as it builds up to make sure food does not go mouldy. Only remove what you must and return the rest or replace it. Once again, to find the food hoard has vanished would be very stressful so avoid that!