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AmityvilleHams · 06-09-2020, 04:09 PM

Plastic wouldn't be a good idea. When chewed, it can be ingested which can cause serious and life threatening intestinal blockages. MDF shouldn't be used either as it also is not safe for chewing. Pine, if truly a high quality kiln dried pine that is not treated with anything, can be safe for toy parts. The main reason for this is that toys have a significantly smaller surface area than filling a cage with shredded pine aka shavings so exposure to phenols is extremely low for such items.

Climbing toys in general aren't really suitable for hamsters. They aren't natural climbing animals like rats and they also happen to have fairly poor eyesight naturally so it's really best to avoid climbing toys as a whole - especially any using ladders with rungs or gaps(and even on non-ladder surfaces gaps and such can be dangerous), but there are many dangerous things when it comes to hamster toys.

06-09-2020, 04:09 PM
AmityvilleHams PM Fluffy for custom title Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 4,545	Re: Plastic/pine safe for hamsters? Plastic wouldn't be a good idea. When chewed, it can be ingested which can cause serious and life threatening intestinal blockages. MDF shouldn't be used either as it also is not safe for chewing. Pine, if truly a high quality kiln dried pine that is not treated with anything, can be safe for toy parts. The main reason for this is that toys have a significantly smaller surface area than filling a cage with shredded pine aka shavings so exposure to phenols is extremely low for such items. Climbing toys in general aren't really suitable for hamsters. They aren't natural climbing animals like rats and they also happen to have fairly poor eyesight naturally so it's really best to avoid climbing toys as a whole - especially any using ladders with rungs or gaps(and even on non-ladder surfaces gaps and such can be dangerous), but there are many dangerous things when it comes to hamster toys.