Hamster Central - View Single Post - UK hamster owners

Pebbles82 · 03-02-2021, 04:58 PM

Ongoing - big clean outs aren’t recommended as it does stress them. Partial cleans are better - eg spot clean the pee or empty the litter tray now and then. If anything else needs cleaning (eg wheel ) do that a different week and so on. If they use a litter tray you can easily go 2 to 3 months without the substrate needing changing. Then it’s best to keep back some of the old substrate that’s clean and spread it on top of the new. And resist the temptation to clean everything all in one go.

They are particularly precious about nest and hoard so I leave those alone unless they are pee’d in. Otherwise they see you as a thief! If they are peed on and need removing then replace the hoard with some new food to avoid stress behaviours. And try and leave a little bit of the old nest behind and a big pile of torn up toilet paper sheets so they can rebuild it. Near the house but not inside (they like to forage fir that too).

03-02-2021, 04:58 PM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: UK hamster owners - any users of pennine large rat cage? Ongoing - big clean outs aren’t recommended as it does stress them. Partial cleans are better - eg spot clean the pee or empty the litter tray now and then. If anything else needs cleaning (eg wheel ) do that a different week and so on. If they use a litter tray you can easily go 2 to 3 months without the substrate needing changing. Then it’s best to keep back some of the old substrate that’s clean and spread it on top of the new. And resist the temptation to clean everything all in one go. They are particularly precious about nest and hoard so I leave those alone unless they are pee’d in. Otherwise they see you as a thief! If they are peed on and need removing then replace the hoard with some new food to avoid stress behaviours. And try and leave a little bit of the old nest behind and a big pile of torn up toilet paper sheets so they can rebuild it. Near the house but not inside (they like to forage fir that too).