[Pebbles82]

Never - lol! No seriously it's true you shouldn't ever have to do a "full" cage clean unless there is illness or disease (or after a hamster has passed away).

Partial cleans are better. That means basically - don't clean everything at the same time - so something all smells familiar. And yes spot clean substrate as when needed (replace or add a handful or two) and use a litter tray. Using a litter tray the substrate basically stays clean and dry for a very long time. It's only their pee that's smelly. And with enough substrate in the bottom half always stays dry so no need to even disinfect the cage base.

I change the substrate about every 3 to 4 months. And then I keep about a third to half of the old substrate (the clean half and replace that on top of the new substrate and mix it in a bit.

In between that do the odd thing as and when. So you can just clean the wheel if it needs it (but not the same week as a substrate clean) - they do tend to pee in their wheels sometimes although mine don't seem to! And clean any toys as and when needed - toys often don't need cleaning very often at all. Although I found my hanging rat sputnik actually got dusty on top after a while so took that out to wipe it.

I leave the nest and hoard alone and never remove the nest. Unless it's pee'd in then you have to - same with the hoard if it's pee'd on. They usually grow out of peeing in the nest quite quickly and once using a litter tray their nest stays clean and dry and they are very precious about it. I find it never smells.

Obviously hoards can get quite large - they tend to bury them under the nest if there's enough substrate - so I "prune" those from the bottom when doing the substrate change - because that's the oldest food. And technically that stays dry as it's just dried food but the oldest food at the bottom can go a bit with condensation.

So I'll "prune" about half of it from underneath when changing the substrate. They tend to only hoard dry hamster mix rather than fresh food which they tend to eat straight away. But one reason to only give a very small amount of fresh food like fresh veg etc. So they don't eat some and hoard some. I've never yet had a hamster hoard any fresh food or found anything mouldy (although I do find the odd walnut hoarded in the litter tray that's gone black after been pee'd on - so that has to go. I don't know why they put "special" things in the litter tray - maybe to keep it safe! No one else will want it if pee'd on.

So if you have about 4 to 6" deep substrate you'll be fine. After a while the substrate can get a bit flattened down to so I "spot add" then - ie add a couple more handfuls to bulk it up again.

They are really quite clean little things - do lots of washing and grooming. Their poops aren't really dirty or smelly and they do eat them sometimes (which is normal - they have two stomachs and can redigest vitamins and nutrients from their poops). So I don't worry about those unless they start taking over the cage, then spot clean a bit. There can end up being quite a few in the house at substrate clean time but those can be spot cleaned without needing to remove the nest.

When you do a substrate change there isn't any need to use pet disinfectant either, unless there's been illness or disease. If the cage base is clean and dry I sometimes just use a damp cloth on it . Or sometimes water with a bit of fairy liquid in - but then it needs rinsing to reduce the residue.

Strong smelling products can also affect their respiratory tract, so if you do use pet disinfectant, then rinse well afterwards.