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Originally Posted by Serendipity7000
It looks much better now with the shelf  . They like a shelf - it’s some overhead cover to sit under and something to climb up onto. The plastic penthouse doesn’t make a great house - you could maybe use it for our if cage time as a toy/hide. They need a house that is open underneath and sat on top of the substrate - so they can have normal behaviours and bury hoards under the nest. It also ventilates the house so it doesn’t get sweaty and smelly. Cardboard is your friend! A tissue box or child’s size shoe box makes a good house so it’s dark inside and plenty of space for him to build a big cosy nest for winter. A normal sized shoe box is best if it will fit. You cut the base out and cut a hole for a door - if the door is at one end of one of the long sides he will nest at the other end where it’s darker. You keep the lid as a lift off roof.
You might find he decides to nest in that little round pink house on the shelf. That’s what our first hamster did and it was not good! It’s far too small and hot smelly. But they like round things. It might be better to remove that and add a cardboard house at floor level. If you have a bendy stick bridge you can put that over the house entrance so it’s darker inside (they do need to retreat somewhere dark at times) and it also makes a ramp up onto the house roof.
The cage is fine . Some hamsters want more space but some will be happy in that size cage. You can always upgrade later if necessary but many Syrians will be happy with that cage. It has that nice big front opening door which is great for interaction and encourages easier taming.
One word of caution. If you change things too much early on he may get stressed and start bar chewing so apart from adding a house I would leave things as they are now for about two weeks. They need that two weeks settling in time. |
I'll give the shoebox thing a try once I get my hands on one lol. I do definitely plan on changing out the hideout/penthouse when I get the chance, but it's all I have for now. And yes, I have noticed some signs of stress, which is understandable since this has been a very big week for him - I only got him last Friday. So, my plan for now is to just leave things as they are and just let him settle in before making any drastic changes.