Bioactive hamster cage?
So in the future, I have a lot of plans to really step up my hamster care and try to mimic their natural habitat as much as possible. One concept which I thought of was making the enclosure bioactive.
If you don't know what this means, it's essentially adding invertebrates to the substrate such as springtails and isopods/woodlice, which then consume decaying matter such as mould and faeces. I've seen this done with both rats and hedgehogs, but I've only heard a couple people discussing it online for hamsters. I really feel like this could be very beneficial as it would mean I would never have to clean the enclosure, apart from areas such as the sand bath. This could definitely make a hamster a lot less stressed.
To do this, I would use a soil substrate mixed with aspen for odour control, as well as maybe hay, sphagnum moss, etc. to make it easier for burrowing. I do not intend on planting any plants directly into the substrate as this would cause moisture problems, though I might add some safe potted ones depending on how the hamster reacts.
I was curious to see if anyone could find any problems with this as I might not have considered certain things. I couldn't really think of any apart from the fact I might need to create small humid spots in parts of the enclosure for the inverts to thrive.
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