Smelly cage (pee?) - Need help, please

**Hamtastic** · 09-02-2011, 03:16 PM

I can't decide what it is exactly, but I *think* it's the pee that's at fault here, although maybe it's some hormonal markings. Lately Dora's (roborovski) cage stinks very badly, some distance away from her zoozone even (normally you can't smell my hams at all until you stick your nose into their cage). Leela's cage was cleaned 2 weeks ago, and it smells fairly clean--just under Dora's. Dora's was cleaned under a week ago, with full sand change, wheel washes, etc. since then as well and it just stinks... kind of musky and like bad pee. I've been wondering why that could be.

Maybe her digging area magnifies it too, because it's a tall pile of bedding where she spends a lot of time--could be making the smell worse.

I keep trying to test her for diabetes too, just in case, but all my barely successful attempts were uneventful. Anyway, if she were diabetic and her pee were smelly because of it, I read it would smell almost nice, sweet acetone-like maybe? That's not at all what hers is like.

Any ideas? I'm afraid I'm going to have to start cleaning her cage fully once a week or less =/ It doesn't really need it, but the smell is just getting very annoying.

For reference, Leela and Dora are most likely sisters of the same age, and could not be more different in personality (and apparently stinkyness level)

fsrv · 09-02-2011, 10:09 PM

Could it be that she pees somewhere where there's no substrate to absorb it, like in her wheel?

**Hamtastic** · 09-03-2011, 10:22 AM

I do wash the wheel a lot, but it was dirty yesterday--as it often is =/ It's easy to tell, because it's a Rolly, so its transparency makes pee obvious. The bedding she uses is quite good too at smell absorption, but I switched to one with a small amount of baking soda--will see if that helps.

fluffymunchkins · 09-03-2011, 12:36 PM

Bacardis cage gets very wiffy, even though he doesn't pee much around the cage and the bedding is absorbant.
I think its usually because of the wheel though as this is where he mainly goes.

Unfortunately the more you wash it, the more they want to pee on it.

**Pompompoms** · 09-03-2011, 05:32 PM

Diabetes is very very unlikely in robos, especially young healthy girls like your lovely ladies.

It's most likely she is weeing in one or just a couple of places. I've got two girls on their own at the moment, Minxie never smells as she wee's all over the place, whereas Lilly can get a little smelly as she has wee corner in her sandpit. Lilly was only cleaned on Wednesday, and I noticed yesterday her tub wasn't smelling too fresh. Fortunately easily remedied.

George absolutely stinks if I don't empty the corner of his sand pit everyday, and I mean really smells! Bigger hamster, bigger wee

**Hamtastic** · 09-03-2011, 05:57 PM

I'm going to keep a close eye on where she pees. She did have a very large sand area and one large corner that she preferred to do her business in, which was a culprit, but then her wheel was too, and probably some other spots that I couldn't quite detect. I swapped her corner litter box to a much smaller one so I can empty it every other day now without going through loads of sand. Going to rinse her wheel every other day too, since that's easy. Hopefully that will help most of the smell. I can't figure out where Leela does no. 1, because her wheels are usually quite clean, and her sand is not bad either... and her cage doesn't really smell much. So maybe it's into bedding at random.