Cage Cleaning Confusion

[archangelvk]

Hello Community, I am a proud new owner of a Syrian Hamster and this is also my first post. I have been researching a lot about How often I should be cleaning out hamster cages and have been getting a lot of conflicting information so Ive decided to ask all you experts here.

Info:
Hamster Type: 8 week old Syrian Hamster (5 Inches long) Ive only had him for a week
Habitat: a 40inch x 22 inch bin cage (880 square inches of space)
Bedding: Kaytee Clean and Cozy 6 inches of bedding.

Current Cleaning Schedule: daily removal of waste in sand bin and any poop I can find on top of the substrate as well as the the tunnels is uses to sleep in (thus ruining the tunnel he makes)

This morning I removed the hamster to my bathtub to roam freely and removed all his equipment and toys to do a more thorough clean. I mainly just flipped all the bedding around to make sure I got as much poop as possible and noticed that today my hamster didnt burrow anymore and opted to just sleep in the hamster house instead. She is still very active and still comes to me for food. I hope I didnt screw her up or anything. I enjoyed the fact that she was burrowing.

Anywho, with my current setup and cleaning schedule

1) how often should I be doing a deep clean meaning to remove 1/3 or 1/4 of the bedding and washing the bin down with vinegar/water mix?

2) do I not even need to do a deep clean ever if im spot cleaning so often ?

3) Am I spot cleaning too often?

Thanks in advance for any advice

[cypher]

Welcome to HC & congrats on your new ham.
Spot cleaning refers mainly to cleaning any pee you find, poo can be left longer & they do eat some, as it’s dry & doesn’t smell you can leave that for quite a while.
It can take them some time to settle on one place to pee, for the first few weeks I wouldn’t even spot clean pee every day as if you keep removing it your ham may just keep trying a different spot.
Once you find an established pee spot or your ham used a litter tray then you can remove wet substrate as often as you need to.
I wouldn’t do more than that for the first month, even then you only need to do bigger cleans every few months depending on your ham, you can clean up any areas that may need it more often, I find the area around the wheel tends to need cleaning a bit more often as pee, poo & food all seems to accumulate there but you’ll find out what needs cleaning more as your ham settles in more.
Try to avoid disturbing the nest unless it gets wet from pee as much as possible.
If you have to clean the area where the food hoard is then put some fresh mix there to replace it.
They really don’t need that much cleaning except for pee, I only clean as & when needed rather than sticking to a schedule & it varies with every ham.

[LunaTheHamster1]

It does sound like you may have cleaned too much and too soon. For example I don't clean my hamsters cages at all for the first couple of weeks. In Twinkle's case it was over a month as he was so timid. I think all of my hamsters mostly pee and poo in one spot under their house and also store their food there. After they are tame and settled in I clean this area out maybe once a week or so, every now and then scooping out the soiled area and adding clean food and bedding. I only do a deep clean maybe every 1.5 to 2 months. which for me means taking about a 3rd of the bedding out which is mostly at the house end, or a thin layer across the top, scoop the remaining bedding across and add more. I dont clean any part of the cage down with safe cleaner as it doesnt need it. When i first started keeping hamsters again, I had the Alaska cage with a plastic base and I use to rinse that out because I thought that was what I needed to be doing, but it didn't need it, especially if you have deep bedding and a big cage. The only other thing I clean when needed is the wheel. I find Hamsters are pretty clean animals, out of all my syrians the only one who seems to leave poop dotted around is Twinkle, typical boy, none of my females did this ��

[archangelvk]

Originally Posted by cypher

Welcome to HC & congrats on your new ham.
Spot cleaning refers mainly to cleaning any pee you find, poo can be left longer & they do eat some, as it’s dry & doesn’t smell you can leave that for quite a while.
It can take them some time to settle on one place to pee, for the first few weeks I wouldn’t even spot clean pee every day as if you keep removing it your ham may just keep trying a different spot.
Once you find an established pee spot or your ham used a litter tray then you can remove wet substrate as often as you need to.
I wouldn’t do more than that for the first month, even then you only need to do bigger cleans every few months depending on your ham, you can clean up any areas that may need it more often, I find the area around the wheel tends to need cleaning a bit more often as pee, poo & food all seems to accumulate there but you’ll find out what needs cleaning more as your ham settles in more.
Try to avoid disturbing the nest unless it gets wet from pee as much as possible.
If you have to clean the area where the food hoard is then put some fresh mix there to replace it.
They really don’t need that much cleaning except for pee, I only clean as & when needed rather than sticking to a schedule & it varies with every ham.

Thank you for your comment. So it may seem I have cleaned too much which is why its kinda pooing everywhere. Its pee is decent as it goes 75% of the time in the sand box. Is it too late to stop the spot cleaning now or shall I just continue?

Thanks

[Pebbles82]

I would just leave him for a while and just clean the pee in the sand box once or twice a week. After that, if the poops start taking over you could do a bit of spit cleaning but if there aren’t many I wouldn’t bother.

I go about 3 months before changing the substrate - that‘a with at least 4” deep bedding and a litter tray for the pee. Best to clean everything at the same time as that removes all
their scent and stresses them. So if you change the substrate then clean the wheel a different week and any other items that need it, a different week again. Toys often don’t need cleaning very often. Even when changing the substrate it’s helpful to keep back some of the old substrate that’s clean and spread it on top of the new so it still smells familiar.

So partial cleans basically. That top layer will gradually get spot cleaned out. Hamsters are quite clean little things really - it’s just their pee that is smelly.

There is no need to disinfect the cage unless there has been illness or disease so when you do change the substrate it’s fine just to use soapy dishwashing water (and rinse well) or I just use a warm damp cloth because the base is usually clean and dry if there’s enough substrate and they use a litter tray.

Is your cage ok? They need enough floorspace, enough substrate, a good size house/nesting box to nest in, a Syrian sized wheel, ideally a shelf or platform and tunnels and hides places as floor toys etc for enrichment. Plus a chew stick to help keep their teeth trim. Having a rough stone or plant pot base on a shelf under the food bowl also helps keep their nails trim. I have a rough granite tile.

[cypher]

It’s by no means too late to change, give him some more time to settle in then you will soon be able to tell what needs doing when, for now certainly less is better!

[Pebbles82]

Also please not an error in my message. It should say best NOT to clean everything at the same time!