a hamster's burrowing instinct

[sthomas048]

Hello folks,

Im a total newbie when it comes to hamsters and was wondering how important is it for a hamster as a pet to have opportunities to burrow as it does in the wild ? I read that they live in burrows. A lot is mentioned with Gerbils that they need quite a deep layer of substrate in their tanks/cages due to this and i was wondering if it is beneficial to provide a hamster with the same environment ?

I myself am more into Syrian hamsters, but enjoyed watching "Wild China" on BBC2 with the burrowing Roborovskis !

Big thanks.

[crawleytown]

For Gerbils it's very important for them to burrow, for hamsters I think they are fine as long as you provide lot's of nesting materials for them to burrow into I think that's fine.

[mollldoll]

Ive found that my group of robos make fantastic little burrows - when they were in the tank i could see them all working in a line digging it out, when iv gave my dwarfs burrowing material they've been happy to dig and make themselves a little nest but nothing more - though robotnick (campells) made a food storage place too, my syrians have never been bothered

my gerbils however make the most fantastic tunnel systems and nests, its amazing to see log (my main builder!) to build her place up and use the things we give her to help construct it (cardboard), gir being the prep girl has been left pretty useless after the two girls were split - we build up her setup as she cant get the hang of it