My hamster garden

[mongo]

i thought I'd write to say how my hamster garden went down with the hamsters. A couple of months ago I decided to give my landbirds a permanent run out to fresh air. Luckily they live in a shed so could give them fairly easy access to outdoors. Here are the photos. It looks very diy but bear in mind I have no experience in diy.
I am thrilled with how much they use it, so I think it was the best thing I've ever done for them!





I've rotated all the hamsters through it week by week and i've noticed that Joffy, my Syrian, loves it the most - Joffy just wants to ramble around and sniff and eat the beans and be outside all the time.
The dwarfs - my boy on his own was quite wary of it and doesn't actively run around it much, instead he prefers to go out and sit on the 'porch' and just listen 'to the sounds of the night'.
The girls love exploring it, they always check it's 'still there' when they get up, this other world of theirs. They enjoy smelling things and digging at the roots. I'm at the moment considering whether to make a second one so the girls can have access to it all the time.
However I don't think the hamster mix i've sown contains things that are as appealing to dwarfs as to Syrians though, as they didn't destroy the vegetation with their rambles.



The reason it looks a bit messy is that I've double meshed it - I was paranoid that the cats and owls would put their talons through one layer of mesh and pin the hamster to the side. And the reason it's curved over the top is because I was paranoid that the hamsters would climb it and then if they got too high up they would fall off and injure themselves. So made it curved so they can't climb so high.

Anyway, will try and get some pics of them running around in it this weekend so I can post them up.

[SoapyVP]

Wow! That's brilliant!

[Stockannette]

Neat! Can you tell us what all is planted in there?

[Member_12600]

That is AMAZING! I bet they love going in there!

[Bright_moon]

aw wow, lucky hams! <3

[strawberrysmom]

I echo the question about what is planted in there! I'd love to make a garden too!!!

[PezPus]

oh how nice, it must be nice to let the little ones outside To bad its way to cold here for any hammie garden

[mongo]

Sorry just managing to get around to replying now! The seed mix I found by going on ebay and typing in "Hamster Seed Mix". I read about it in a post on HC earlier this year so I thought i'd try it out. It has:

Chickweed
White Clover
Red Clover
Crimson Clover
Dandelion
Mallow
Marigolds
Nipplewort
Plaintain
Shepherds Purse
Sow Thistle
Trefoil
Vetch
Alfalfa
Timothy Grass

I don't know which of these is 'beans' but the things that have grown the most are beans! And Joffy really loves his beans so that's great. Originally I just wanted lots of dandelions but they haven't grown, I think because my soil isn't deep enough.

The soil is just a couple of layers of very thick cardboard on top of an old wooden table, then 2 bags of seed compost, then a few cartons of chinchilla bathing sand on top of that.

I guess if I used real soil then it would be better for the plants. I was too scared of using real soil from the garden just in case it contained germs, but actually thinking about it, well rotted and mature soil should be completely sterile so I may, possibly add some, at some point, not sure.

I'm wondering what it will look like over the winter and how the hamsters will use it, I'm sure it will be a quiet time for the garden. I think the Siberian ones, my little mini meerkats, may like their own garden - with tunnels and plop down holes. But that's another project for one day!

[strawberrysmom]

I couldn't find a mix already package to be sold like that for hamsters but I'm writing down the list and maybe I can get them separately. I was planning on getting a sunlamp for the plants I have to bring in this fall/winter to keep alive so I could have a hamster garden set up (make a garden bin) for my sun lamp corner so I can keep the plants alive until spring. It would be so cool for my 2 year old and myself to see them enjoy their garden! Especially, during bedding changes it would be their opportunity to have some garden time.

I have robos and a cambells - I'm hoping it's just as safe for them as syrians?

[Poptart]

Thats really cool! Its great that they love it so much.