Hi,
We now have a Syrian hamster to add to our brood named Roger - our son Jordan has wanted a pet mouse for ages but because I don't like tails on small furries we reached a compromise and agreed on a hamster. He is our first hamster so I don't know much about them except the basic care needs that I have learnt through reading. Now I understand that on a daily basis I need to give him fresh food and water and clean his 'toilet' area. He does wee in one particular corner of his cage but he also wee's in his little house where he sleeps where all his bedding is - am I right in thinking that I shouldn't be messing with his bed every day because he arranges it just how he likes it? I have had to empty his bedding and food stash though and put fresh in because it smells and cant be nice for him - any ideas whether I am doing the right thing???

Thanks in advance

Hayley

I used to have a hamster....she always weed in one corner on the sawdust. Can I ask what are you using in the cage to line it? And is the same stuff in the house? My cage was lined with sawdust, but her bed was a plastic house with no sawdust. Its quite rare for a hamster to want to wee on  non absorbent surface, and very rare for them to soil their beds

Hi pinklilies,
The whole floor of the cage is lined with sawdust/shavings - which he wee's on in one corner and then his little house has hamster bedding in - like shredded paper. He sleeps inside the little house all day and moves all of his food from his dish into here - but also wee's in there too

Our hamster tends to wee in her bed too. My son cleans her 'toilet area' each day, but doesn't touch her bed, as it distresses her. We usually leave her bed when we clean her cage for the same reason, but if it gets realyl dirty then I just clean the dirty bits out, leaving the rest.

We had a hamster toilet for ours witha type of litter in it was brill no problems

Is the house made of plastic? If so, bin it. Plastic houses always makes hamsters toilet inside them, they get too hot and airtight and do get smelly. Indeed after a while they usually cause fur loss because of it all. I wish they weren't sold at all. They don't need a house, they make a nice nest easily of their own -if you want to give a house it should be a wooden one. :)

(My other identity is as a long term breeder and judge of hamsters although I have now stopped breeding. :) )

Id also recommend you dont use sawdust.. i use bob martins paper cat litter (make sure its paper and not 'paper based')or Animal Dreams mini compressed cardboard. I know other people use a product called Carefresh.

Sawdust contains tiny dust particles which badly affect small rodents respiritory systems, and also the phenols in the softwoods used will do damage (both of these are reasons people working closely with sawdust wear nose/mouth masks!!!).

I have always used small empty cardboard boxes for small rodents, mice, hammies and rats all love them. (the boxes that contain ten packs of AMP/Prizechoice frozen meat are superb for rats!)

I also collect newspaper from a local newsagent and shred it at home with an office shredder to make safe cheap 'nestly' bedding.

I think the OP probably meant shavings -as you probably know it's very rare for sawdust even to be sold. (It's fine for mice though, as they are small enough to not breathe it in like bigger animals do.) But the phenol and small animals bit is an internet urban legend -it does them no harm at all. The rumour started in America in the 90's. I've had small animals on wood shavings since 1975, and there's never been a single problem, even when they have been in glass or plastic tanks. And I've had thousands upon thousands.

When you clean the bedding area out I would put some of the original bedding back in so that all the familiar smells are still there :)

Ok thankyou for all the advice. Marianne, yes the little house is indeed plastic - it came with the cage and I have been putting the bedding inside this. I will stop using it and perhaps get one of the little grassy type hide outs that they sell? If I stop using a hide out at all, what bedding would you reccommend? The type I have is like little chunks of paper type stuff and I imagine if it wasn't placed inside a hide out then it would just go everywhere in a flat pile and the hamster would find it difficult to make a bed from it?? I have seen the cotton wooly type - is this better? Regarding the phenols in shavings - yes it is shavings that I am using, I had rabbits a few years back and always used the wood based cat litter pellets. Now I have thought of using these or carefresh but both of those products are quite bulky and I imagine it would be difficult for a hamster to walk on a product like that?? One last question, what fresh foods are best to give and how much/how often?

Thanks again for all of your help

Hayley

Hi Hayley

What I personally use for my hamsters is either woodshavings or Carefresh -they do manage on the Carefresh just fine and I must say it keeps clean and odour free about twice as long as shavings does, but it is also far more expensive (or would be for anyone keeping large numbers LOL! For just the one it won't be much. :) ) and it doesn't LOOK as nice. But it's fine to use. Then for bedding I simply give each hamster about 3-4 sheets of kitchen paper! They rip that up themselves which they enjoy doing, and make a nest as easy as anything. The cotton wool type bedding is another thing that can be dangerous, because there have been instances where hamsters have had it wind itself round their legs like thread, cutting off the blood supply, and it can also cause problems if put inside the cheek pouches. Kitchen paper is perfect! :) Oh and wood based cat littetr is not very nice for hamsters, you do have to use it for longhairs in the pens at shows, but it is so harsh on their little feet they don't much like walking on it.

Oh forgot to say about fresh foods. Almost anything. Fruit, vegetables, pasta, cheese, pancakes, rice, dog food, bread, dog biscuits, boiled potatoes, meat, fish -anything that isn't spicy, very salty or acidic (i.e. no oranges) and of course nothing with onions.  You can give a little bit of whatever each day if you want -or never at all, either works just as well.

Agree with Marianne about the cotton wool type stuff.
My brother used to use it on his hamsters.
One got it wrapped around his leg and had to go to the vets to cut it off(Tim bit the vet while he was trying to do it!!!)
So I would never ever advise using the cotton wool stuff after seeing what it did to tiny Tim.
Lea :)

I dunno... my rats are very wheezy on shavings and fine on paper... id rather not take the risk personally and dont use any dusty bedding or softwood/pine stuff at all.

Thankyou! When he wakes up later I will remove the plastic house and pop a few peices of kitchen roll in the corner where it was - do I just put it in whole and not tear it up at all? Will he know what to do? I wouldn't like to leave him without a place to sleep. I'm going to give him a bit of cucumber tonight, about 1cm cube - is that enough or too much? :rolleyes: Oh, and tomorrow I will get a bag of carefresh - I did like it when used for the rabbits.

He'll know what to do. :) The amount of cucumber is fine.

theemx, don't put rats on shavings, it can cause serious breathing problems with them.

I dont use sawdust/shavings except once when rats arrived here in a cage with shavings in and i didnt have anything to replace it with!

That's because all fancy rats have lung trouble these days -there is no such thing as a clear strain anymore. Hamsters are not like that at all.

Well, he didn't get up at all last night I dont think - food dish was left full I have checked him in the plastic house this morning and he popped his little head out  - nose twitching.....................is it normal that they sometimes dont get up??

I too only used little boxes for them to sleep in- our hamsters and rats just loved them- they would chew their won holes and when I cleaned their cage I would just give them a knew one. We use kleenix boxes, Q-Tips, perfume boxes, what ever we found, they loved toilet paper, napkin rolls. I gave toilet paper as well as napkins for bedding. I found ours ate more so at night time and slept during the day... You can offer some lettuce - not head lettuce, carrots but not to much cause it can cause wet tail- enjoy :)

Wet tail is a viral infection and cannot be caused by what you feed. :)