How do you Litter Train Hamsters?

[Creampuff]

Hi,

I really want to litter train my hamster, but how would I do that? Also, what do I fill it with? How do I make her go in it? It's probably too late now for her to learn; she's over a year old, but maybe for the next hamster I can litter train it.

Thank you!

[Flossypet]

I've found that if you give them a substance that they prefer to use as a litter they will use it, provided it's easy enough for them to reach on a daily basis. I'm not an expert, but from what I've seen most hamsters will use chinchilla bathing sand as litter. You can put it in anything you want, but I would suggest buying a hamster toilet or something similar online.

[Ria P]

I think a Syrian is more likely to use a toilet than a dwarf. My Syrian pees in a corner toilet filled with chinchilla sand. I'd put peed on substrate in with the toilet and sand then place it in her peeing corner or place she pees.

[cypher]

It does depend on the species to some extent, I find most Russians will use a small container filled with sand, it helps if you have a large enough house with more than one room as they often like to pee in there & you can put it in the house.
If they have chosen a spot to pee then putting the container there & adding some peed on substrate will often work.

[Creampuff]

Okay, thank you!

I don't have any container that I know of, so I would have to buy that. I thought Chinchilla Bathing Sand was too fine. Or is that just for sand baths? Speaking of which, will she roll around in there?

She is a Syrian, by the way. To be honest, I do not know where she pees, she kinda just goes anywhere, so that's a little problem.... If I just put the container anywhere and put some of her soiled substrate in it, would she use that?

Also, would just substrate work, or do you need something different so they don't kick it out or get it confused with regular bedding?

[Kyrkogrimr]

Rodipet has corner litter trays that fit inside their chamber houses, but if you're short of money, when I was a child I used a jam jar and that worked - just make sure it's big enough for them to not get trapped.

[cypher]

Just substrate should work ok, it may get kicked out a bit & mixed in with the surrounding substrate but it will still be much easier to spot clean.