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Pebbles82 · 05-10-2021, 05:15 AM

By burrow box do you mean a kind of add on bin attached with a tube? I think we were assuming it was a kind of wood item that sits in the cage (also called a digging box). If it’s the former then it will cause confused behaviours because she will have two separate environments. They do better with one larger cage area than two smaller attached ones as then they can have normal behaviours.

Over the years I have found what works is - large floor area on a single cage (at least 80 x 50 cm). At least 4 to 6” substrate. Large house that’s dark inside. A shelf or platform, wheel obviously, floor toys like tunnels and hidey places. If you give them an empty cage with 12” of substrate then yes they will dig a burrow - because there is nowhere else to retreat to. And it’s what they do in the wild. But if you provide a dark place to retreat to (large house) and plenty of tunnels abd hidey places, many don’t bother to dig at all (Syrians that is). They often like to build little mountains out of the substrate instead - either to insulate a house on the outside, or to block off the entrance (to make it darker inside), or sometimes in tanks, a mountain in one corner so they can climb to the top to try and escape - lol.

05-10-2021, 05:15 AM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: Help would be greatly appreciated. By burrow box do you mean a kind of add on bin attached with a tube? I think we were assuming it was a kind of wood item that sits in the cage (also called a digging box). If it’s the former then it will cause confused behaviours because she will have two separate environments. They do better with one larger cage area than two smaller attached ones as then they can have normal behaviours. Over the years I have found what works is - large floor area on a single cage (at least 80 x 50 cm). At least 4 to 6” substrate. Large house that’s dark inside. A shelf or platform, wheel obviously, floor toys like tunnels and hidey places. If you give them an empty cage with 12” of substrate then yes they will dig a burrow - because there is nowhere else to retreat to. And it’s what they do in the wild. But if you provide a dark place to retreat to (large house) and plenty of tunnels abd hidey places, many don’t bother to dig at all (Syrians that is). They often like to build little mountains out of the substrate instead - either to insulate a house on the outside, or to block off the entrance (to make it darker inside), or sometimes in tanks, a mountain in one corner so they can climb to the top to try and escape - lol.