Hamster Central - View Single Post - Hamster’s Cage Deep pre-Clean

Pebbles82 · 10-25-2021, 10:37 AM

Love the “putting the bins outside” analogy

. Spot cleaning twice a day is far too much really. What is important is having enough depth of bedding. If it’s very shallow bedding the hamster can’t have normal behaviours (burying hoards or digging or rearranging the substrate into mountains or piling it up next to their house to insulate it and keep warm). Also with very shallow bedding, everything falls through to the bottom.

You do need a minimum of 4 to 6” depth of substrate. It might sound a lot at first but you use less in the long run because the cage stays cleaner - which benefits the hamster as less clean outs and less stress for them (full clean outs really do stress them even if they don’t seem physically stressed). Also benefits you as less to do.

I do the same as Ria. Use a litter tray which the hamster pees in (Syrians will use one - dwarfs may pee more than one place). And empty that once or twice a week (chinchilla sand in the litter tray). The rest of the cage stays clean and dry fir weeks. The substrate ends up getting flattened/going down and then part of spot cleaning is adding the odd handful of extra substrate and maybe picking out any rubbishy bits the hamster has chucked out of the nest or spot cleaning poops if there are quite a lot - but don’t worry about the poops unless there are loads- they’re not really dirty or smelly - like hard seeds. They actually eat poops sometimes which is normal - they have two stomachs and can redigest nutrients from the poops. So removing all of them would make them feel anxious anyway. It goes back to hardwiring in case there are food shortages in the wild.

With dwarf hamsters it’s not always clear where they pee but just spot clean any damp or stained patch. If you can’t find any - don’t worry about it.

So I tend to only remove all the substrate and clean the cage base every 3 months or so. And at that stage I put a third to half the old substrate back in again- the clean half. Often the bottom half is completely clean. Then mix that in with the new substrate. So it still has some familiar scent (hamsters feel lost and anxious when all familiar scent is removed). So for that reason also, partial cleans are best. As in when you do the substrate change, don’t clean anything else at the same time. You can clean the wheel as snd when it needs it, at another time. Likewise any toys. Toys often don’t need cleaning very often. The only dirty thing is their pee - otherwise they are quite clean little things - groom a lot and some do their own bits of housekeeping if you leave it long enough! I often find a hole in the substrate where the hamster has dragged a load of substrate into the nest - or piled it up against the house- abd chucked out some older looking substrate. One hamster we had actually used to put the pile of old bedding material right in front of the cage door! Big message - take this away.

I leave the nest - indefinitely. It is usually clean and dry and they are very precious about their nests. Only if it’s peed in does it need removing - and then it’s best to leave a little bit of the old nest behind so it smells familiar and put new paper nesting material out in a heap in the cage so they can forage for it and rebuild the nest.

Their hoards are mostly buried under their nest (if the substrate is deep enough) - it is usually just dried food and hamster mix and that stores well (again unless peed on) so I leave that alone too. But when changing the substrate over I tend to remove the bottom half of the hoard (ie the older food). Especially as it can be quite large by then. They don’t really notice that.

If it is peed in and needs removing then again try and leave a little bit of it left that is dry - so it smells familiar - but also add a handful of new food in the same place - to replace it. They can get quite frantic at the hoard being “stolen” and that can actually make them start peeing on the hoard - as if to deter thieves!

So cleaning the bottom of the cage is only done at substrate change time. I just wipe it with a damp cloth as it’s usually clean and dry. If pee has soaked down to the bottom you could just clean it with soapy washing up water (ie a bit of fairy liquid in water).

The cage doesn’t need disinfecting unless there has been illness or disease. Vinegar isn’t actually a disinfectant . It’s a cleaner - but can smell quite strong afterwards even if rinsed well and that can be a bit overpowering for hamsters who have a much stronger sense of smell than us - and a sensitive respiratory tract.

The only time I’ve used vinegar is when wanting to actually remove scent from a cage - an example being when we left our hamster at another house - in his cage. When he came home he was extremely stressed by the change of environment and clearly could still “smell” the other house - he didn’t settle till I cleaned it all removing all scent from the cage itself.

If there have been bugs in the cage vinegar cleaning can help too as it can kill bug eggs - but to be honest I would prefer to use a hamster safe pet disinfectant if there have been bugs hatching out in the cage.

10-25-2021, 10:37 AM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: Hamster’s Cage Deep pre-Clean Love the “putting the bins outside” analogy . Spot cleaning twice a day is far too much really. What is important is having enough depth of bedding. If it’s very shallow bedding the hamster can’t have normal behaviours (burying hoards or digging or rearranging the substrate into mountains or piling it up next to their house to insulate it and keep warm). Also with very shallow bedding, everything falls through to the bottom. You do need a minimum of 4 to 6” depth of substrate. It might sound a lot at first but you use less in the long run because the cage stays cleaner - which benefits the hamster as less clean outs and less stress for them (full clean outs really do stress them even if they don’t seem physically stressed). Also benefits you as less to do. I do the same as Ria. Use a litter tray which the hamster pees in (Syrians will use one - dwarfs may pee more than one place). And empty that once or twice a week (chinchilla sand in the litter tray). The rest of the cage stays clean and dry fir weeks. The substrate ends up getting flattened/going down and then part of spot cleaning is adding the odd handful of extra substrate and maybe picking out any rubbishy bits the hamster has chucked out of the nest or spot cleaning poops if there are quite a lot - but don’t worry about the poops unless there are loads- they’re not really dirty or smelly - like hard seeds. They actually eat poops sometimes which is normal - they have two stomachs and can redigest nutrients from the poops. So removing all of them would make them feel anxious anyway. It goes back to hardwiring in case there are food shortages in the wild. With dwarf hamsters it’s not always clear where they pee but just spot clean any damp or stained patch. If you can’t find any - don’t worry about it. So I tend to only remove all the substrate and clean the cage base every 3 months or so. And at that stage I put a third to half the old substrate back in again- the clean half. Often the bottom half is completely clean. Then mix that in with the new substrate. So it still has some familiar scent (hamsters feel lost and anxious when all familiar scent is removed). So for that reason also, partial cleans are best. As in when you do the substrate change, don’t clean anything else at the same time. You can clean the wheel as snd when it needs it, at another time. Likewise any toys. Toys often don’t need cleaning very often. The only dirty thing is their pee - otherwise they are quite clean little things - groom a lot and some do their own bits of housekeeping if you leave it long enough! I often find a hole in the substrate where the hamster has dragged a load of substrate into the nest - or piled it up against the house- abd chucked out some older looking substrate. One hamster we had actually used to put the pile of old bedding material right in front of the cage door! Big message - take this away. I leave the nest - indefinitely. It is usually clean and dry and they are very precious about their nests. Only if it’s peed in does it need removing - and then it’s best to leave a little bit of the old nest behind so it smells familiar and put new paper nesting material out in a heap in the cage so they can forage for it and rebuild the nest. Their hoards are mostly buried under their nest (if the substrate is deep enough) - it is usually just dried food and hamster mix and that stores well (again unless peed on) so I leave that alone too. But when changing the substrate over I tend to remove the bottom half of the hoard (ie the older food). Especially as it can be quite large by then. They don’t really notice that. If it is peed in and needs removing then again try and leave a little bit of it left that is dry - so it smells familiar - but also add a handful of new food in the same place - to replace it. They can get quite frantic at the hoard being “stolen” and that can actually make them start peeing on the hoard - as if to deter thieves! So cleaning the bottom of the cage is only done at substrate change time. I just wipe it with a damp cloth as it’s usually clean and dry. If pee has soaked down to the bottom you could just clean it with soapy washing up water (ie a bit of fairy liquid in water). The cage doesn’t need disinfecting unless there has been illness or disease. Vinegar isn’t actually a disinfectant . It’s a cleaner - but can smell quite strong afterwards even if rinsed well and that can be a bit overpowering for hamsters who have a much stronger sense of smell than us - and a sensitive respiratory tract. The only time I’ve used vinegar is when wanting to actually remove scent from a cage - an example being when we left our hamster at another house - in his cage. When he came home he was extremely stressed by the change of environment and clearly could still “smell” the other house - he didn’t settle till I cleaned it all removing all scent from the cage itself. If there have been bugs in the cage vinegar cleaning can help too as it can kill bug eggs - but to be honest I would prefer to use a hamster safe pet disinfectant if there have been bugs hatching out in the cage.