After losing Marty on Friday, I cleaned out her cage and then kept myself occupied with thinking how to lay it out for a future inhabitant - there were things I would have liked to do for Marty, but I knew she would probably not appreciate me altering anything!
It's not actually a drastically different layout, but I wanted to try and make it easier for me to access for cleaning. Marty had half of the big Rodipet labyrinth house under her wheel. I had to move a lot of bits to get into her house for cleaning, and I didn't like that it wasn't easy for me to get in when I wanted to check on her when I knew she wasn't well, or even to get my hand at a good angle to pick her up easily.
She also had a smaller Rodipet house, an L shaped one with three rooms, in the centre of the cage, but she only used it occasionally for dumping chew toys in! I am hoping the next resident will decide to use this house to sleep in, as it is much easier to access and also I can just take off the roof to the room where I am putting the potty tray to clean it - always assuming I can persuade the little beastie to pee where I want...
Anyway, I have put my Knuff shelves back in with a fresh coat of paint. This one is at the front right of the cage -
This one is at the back right -
Underneath the shelf is a big mug that a friend bought me, it is way too big to have a cup of tea in but it makes a nice hamster sand bath!
This shelf is at the back left and I have made a partition to block access to the wheel from the shelf.
I just made a platform for the wheel, it goes across the width of the cage.
Of course, the hamster may decide to burrow under the platform to sleep, which would put paid to my plans of having easy access to its house!
I have hot-glued a cardboard tube into the entrance to the house and piled the Fitch up around it.
I have also been attaching cardboard to various bits of the cage to discourage bar climbing! I don't want to spoil a little hamster's fun, but I remember when I first brought Marty home. She climbed the bars behind her wheel and then found she couldn't work out how to get down - so she just sort of hung there, completely still - I thought she had died of fright, I seriously thought I had killed my little hamster within ten minutes of getting her home! Of course I had to grab her to rescue her, she was actually very calm about it. But I don't want a repeat of that!
Although I have used mostly Fitch in the base of the cage, I have put some Aubiose in the shelves, as that is what Marty had in them and she liked scratching through it to find food. I also went mad and bought a bag of natural colour Carefresh - I must admit I found it a bit whiffy!
I will probably add other bits and pieces to the cage later (I have got a cork tunnel ordered from Zooplus for starters) but I thought there was enough here to keep a new hamster entertained for now, and I can add things slowly to keep things interesting for it.