Lots of toys or space for burrowing?

[michyLS]

I am getting the Alaska cage soon and I'm thinking about how to set it up. I know some of you have a lot of toys in your cages, but my hammie loves to burrow so I was thinking rather than lots of toys I'd want more space for burrowing- Or is it more important to have lots of things to play with/on?
How do you arrange your cages to incorporate the opportunity to burrow/dig as well as play things, tunnels and tubes?

[CMB]

Having a large cage helps.

Section off part of the cage so you can have deep substrate in that area for digging. Bendy bridges on their side can make a good barrier to a digging area.

Or you could put a box in the cage as the digging area. It would need to have some way for the hamster to get in and out though. Possibly placing it near a shelf or platform would help.

[michyLS]

Thanks- he just loves to dig in the deep substrate all over though! Should I put a different substrate in the digging area? He has sand in a box for his toilet and he rolls in it too.

[CMB]

You can try different substrates in the digging area or just the same substrate as the rest of the cage. Is your hamster a Syrian of dwarf? I can't remember.

You could fill the whole base of the cage all over if your hamster loves digging everywhere. This can also help prevent injury if he climbs the bars and across the top bars of the cage. They often drop down so having a soft landing is good.

[michyLS]

Thanks. He's a dwarf hamster. His favourite thing is to burrow, I watch him go from one end of his cage to the other, underneath the substrate , so I'm really looking forward to getting a bigger cage for him

[CMB]

Some substrate holds burrows better than others. Not sure which though. Hope he likes the new cage.

[Pebbles82]

I would put substrate all over the cage as deep as you can and pile it up in the centre in a mound where it can't fall out of the bars. So he can dig tunnels and so on. The answer to your question is - they like both! So you would need toys that aren't heavy on top of the substrate in case he burrows under them. They still like something to hide in and not too much exposed space above them, so although you could have lots of deep substrate you could have things like toilet roll tubes and a cardboard box on top so there are still little hidey places as well. These are lightweight and also not hard if fallen on. You could have a sand bath or sand area in one corner of the cage maybe and a subterranean house in the other corner. ie bury the house partway down the substrate and have a bendy bridge over the door to make a tunnel entrance - you can then pile the substrate round the outside of the house and bendy bridge and scoop a bit of substrate out of the way at the front of the bendy bridge so he can find the entrance. Just thinking if he likes burrowing, he might like going down to a burrow type house. You can have other toys on shelves. As it's quite a tall cage for a dwarf hamster, you'd need to make sure there's nothing hard to land on, on top of the substrate in case he climbs to the top and falls. So the sand bath could go in the corner under the shelf maybe and the bendy bridge tunnel could be under the shelf as well maybe. In fact if you had a subterranean house you could even have the sand bath sitting on top of it.

Have you got a wheel for him yet? One that attaches to the bars might be good as then you won't lose any of the floor area or depth of substrate to the wheel - plus it can't fall over if he tunnels under it. One that would be good is the 9" Silent Runner - it has a bar attachment as an extra that is very sturdy. The downside is it's not the cheapest wheel and the bar attachment costs about another £5. A few people have this wheel for dwarf hammies - it's light and spins really well, even though it's slightly bigger than they need. They usually need about an 8" wheel.

Silent Runner 9"

Cage Attachment for Silent Runner

I would suggest spend more on the wheel and less on toys. You can make all kinds of toys out of cardboard toilet rolls, egg boxes and other cardboard boxes. One toy that might be worth buying though is one of these cardboard hay houses with dried carrot on top - fun to chew.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rosewood-Na...carrot+cottage

For a house, a shoebox is good. You can cut the bottom out and cut a hole for a door in the front and use the lid as a lift off roof, so you can check inside or spot clean inside without having to take the house out (this would be a good thing if the house was part subterranean as well).

Have a look at Erin's Hamsters toilet roll toys videos

[cypher]

I use the alaska cage & the base is plenty deep enough if filled with substrate for burrowing & then you can just put toys on top as long as it's nothing too heavy, heavier toys I tend to put on a shelf or just on something like a bendy bridge to spread the weight, with the alaska it doesn't need to be either or, plenty of space for both!

[michyLS]

Brilliant thanks for the great replies!
Bit gutted though- the new cage purchase has to wait a couple of weeks now as I had to get 2 new tyres for my car yesterday then had a puncture in one of the other ones today which needs replacing. So cage money has become tyre money... I'll just spend the time sourcing and making good toys for the cage. Roll on payday!

[Pebbles82]

Oh bad luck. Not nice spending money on tyres. Maybe a fantastic cage will come up on ebay, cheaper meanwhile Have you thought about a detolf? It's not much more than the Alaska and lots of scope for deep substrate and digging tunnels there.