[AmityvilleHams]

Wild animals and captive bred ones are not the same. Wild animals in fact if anything live a far less ideal life in many ways, so it'd be best to avoid glamourizing the wild & how wild animals live compared to captive ones.

Wild animals do a lot of dangerous things and are exposed to a lot of dangerous things. They're exposed to predators, disease, parasites, toxins, famine, and many other things that are hardly appropriate for thriving. This idealistic picture of freedom that wild animals seem to have absolutely comes at a cost, and it's very important to keep that in mind with any animal.

While I do believe it is important to do things to allow natural behaviors to be exhibited like foraging, these have to be done safely for our pets with completely safe species appropriate materials and such. Soils do not fall under this sort of standard - there is no "properly treating" soil. Even coconut fiber, while the safe alternative, still carries risk factors if not used properly.

Bioactive enclosures are not for hamsters, period. I can respect that they may work for some species as I've mentioned earlier but hamsters are absolutely not one of them. Anything within their cage as mentioned is perfectly within reason to be ingested, and soil is NOT safe to ingest at all - coconut fiber is but as I've already stated that still has to be used very carefully to be safe.

I know it might seem harsh and crushing to have to see it put this way, but the health and safety of your pet should come before this idea. It's far too dangerous and could quite honestly do massive amounts of harm to them.

ETA live plants also should never be inside a hamster enclosure regardless of plant species safety. They add humidity and a risk for mold. You can however safely grow appropriate hamster safe plants outside the cage and offer cut off safe parts as a form of enrichment!