Climbing and falling...

[TriciaB209]

As I posted last night we lost our Trixie yesterday after only having her 3 months. We have no idea what happened - she was not acting ill and seemed perfectly fine the day before. One thing I'm curious about is the way she would climb in her cage. We have the american version of the Barney cage. She would constantly climb the bars of the cage and even hang upside down from the very top bars of the cage. Most of the time she would fall to the bottom of the cage when doing this. Suppose she could have seriously injured herself from falling and it lead to her death? How would we avoid that from happening if we were to get another hamster?

[herbi7]

Oh no, I'm sorry to hear that. She could have done some damage to her back or insides falling that far, sometimes they fall and get away with it but sometimes not if they land at a funny angle. I'd put loads of hammocks in the cage, I don't have a Barney so don't know measurement etc but mine was an Alaska and 40-something cms tall and as my ham was a climber I put two large hammocks in, one fleece as she didn't chew stuff in her cage and one was a rope rat hammock, they joined up so she could go from one to the other without falling through a gap. She also had a couple of levels and a big wooden house that she used as a step to bridge any gaps. They have no instinct for drops so make sure all the steps are easily climb able

[Bertiebobbins]

I'm sorry for your loss.

Both mine are in barney cages and I used wooden hammocks, bridges, sputniks and tubes to make extra levels for them to mitigate injury from falls. One of mine likes to climb and thrown himself off the top of things!

[Pebbles82]

Sorry to hear about your loss. Yes falling from a height can cause injuries, especially if they land on something hard. I try and make sure all floor toys are underneath something - especially hard toys like ceramic or wood bendy bridges - eg under a sputnik, or a shelf, so if they fall they land on a deep layer of soft substrate. But the main thing is to reduce the height of any falls. For Syrians I believe the recommended maximum fall height is no more than 30cm and then onto something soft. I'd say no more than 20cm. The deeper the substrate the better. 3 to 4" minimum depth is recommended, but 6" is better and most cage bases will hold 6" of substrate - it tends to compress and get lower fairly quickly so adding more and mixing it in when spot cleaning is a good idea. You can also pile it up in the centre into a big mound. You don't end up using more substrate as you don't need to replace all of it when cleaning, just spot clean and do full cleans less, and then only replace a third to a half of it (the top part/smelly wet bits) and mix the old into the new. Using a potty tray helps it last longer as well.

I didn't know there was an American version of the Barney cage. How tall is it? Our hamster chews hammocks but you can get grass hammocks with are safe to chew, or you can make one out of the grass chill'n chew mat quite easily by attaching largeish metal rings to each corner, or giant paper clips. Or you could tie it up with sisal rope (which is the only type of string that's safe to use). Also putting extra shelves or levels in can help reduce fall risks, so that the shelves overlap and there is no fall height of greater than 15cm to 20cm onto a shelf.

I find it really fiddly to set up taller cages. I cage of 38cm in height (like the hamster heaven) is easy to set up to avoid fall risks with deep substrate, providing hard toys are under a shelf or something. A cage of 45cm does need either hammocks or an extra shelf or two maybe. Anything taller than that, like rat cages, take quite a bit of setting up to make them safe.

[TriciaB209]

Here is a pic of the cage Trixie was in.

[racinghamster]

That`s the Savic Mickey 2XL cage. I kept my Syrian in one when I had him. Was your hamster a dwarf hamster or a Syrian Tricia? With a good deep layer of substrate, even if the hamster was to climb on the bars, a fall would have a softish landing. However a dwarf hamster is smaller so would possibly/arguable have a longer `drop`, or cause itself internal injury possibly by falling awkwardly. I would recommend selling this cage and buying a tank-style model. Far, far safer and prevents climbing and bar chewing. So two liabilities solved right away. Sorry for your untimely loss. x

[TriciaB209]

racinghamster - Trixie was a Syrian

[Pebbles82]

That's the cage I have Yes it's the Savic Mickey 2XL. It's not that high actually but if a hamster fell from the top onto something hard they could hurt themselves. I think it's unlikely your Syrian would have a serious fall in that cage though, it's only 36cm high inside and with substrate in only about 25cm to fall.

It could be that Trixie just had a congenital defect and sadly died. It's a great cage you have there for a Syrian. Those tubes that come with it are no good for a Syrian though, they are very small. Ours got wedged in them. I took those out and I took the grid shelf out as that's bad for hamsters feet.

If you want some ideas for setting up for next time, my set up is below (although I have a massive wheel in there, as our Syrian is pretty big!) It wouldn't look so crowded with a normal depth 27cm wodent wheel in (it's the 30cm Wobust wheel in mine which is about 5" deep!).

I have the tube running over the top of the bendy bridge that is the entrance to his house, so he can't fall on the bendy bridge, as that's quite hard. If he did fall on it it is more likely to break a bone than to kill a hamster, although it is possible for them to land on their backs on something hard. I guess if they broke their spine it could lead to them dying, but I think you'd have known about it if Trixie had broken something.

The other main thing is to have really deep substrate. The good thing about the 7mm bar spacing on that cage is the substrate doesn't fall out through the bars So you can fill the cage base.

I started out with the cage empty, put a large flat roofed house in, which doubles up as a shelf/platform, the wheel, the bendy bridge over his house entrance. The tube is a cardboard 10cm tied to the roof with sisal string and leads between his house roof and his rat sized sputnik. The rat sized sputniks are very good for syrian hamsters and because it hangs quite low in this cage they can get in and out quite easily.

When I first had the cage I didn't have the tube and didn't have enough substrate in and I used to worry when Charlie would jump out of the sputnik on the right hand side as it was quite a drop and if he fell awkwardly he could land on the wood bendy bridge. So that's when I put the tube in and put deeper substrate in.

He used to have a ceramic sand bath and that sat under the sputnik, so he couldn't fall on that either. I took it out because he didn't use it.

This was the cage a year ago - a bit of a drop there as not so much substrate, but he could only land on the soft stuff as hard stuff was under things It can be a fiddle setting up cages. I made a few mistakes at first (eg a shelf with no access to it!) but if you keep it simple, have lots of deep substrate and have hard toys underneath hanging toys you can't go wrong really. Unfortunately a lot of hamster toys are either dangerous or only meant for dwarf hamsters. Open rung ladders are a bad idea. Houses with holes in that are too small are a risk for heads getting stuck. Cardboard kitchen roll tubes and home-made shoe box cardboard houses are quite safe



And this is the cage now - differerent wheel and house and more substrate