Tips and Info about your pet

Pet Guide Small Animal - Care

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An active hamster - playground for adventure(rs)

Hamsters are way too active to be happy in a boring home. Use simple tools to make the cage an adventure playground for your little rodent.

Hamsters are very active and like to move, therefore, they need a home which meets their thirst for action. Therefore the larger the cage, the better. As the nocturnal rodents like to climb up the bars of their cage, take care that the levels are arranged at alternating heights in higher cages as the hamster can drop from the cage top and can get injured. When the right cage is bought, you're ready to furnish it: Owners should obtain hamster and rabbit litter or sawdust instead of only putting down newspaper in the cage. It is best if you put down a bowl with chinchilla sand in the toilet corner. This simplifies cleaning the cage and binds the odour a little. Do not save on soft hay and straw, because the cute rodents like to use it to fit out their small hideouts. The cage should be equipped with a wheel, toys and sandbox and have an outside enclosure so that the occupants do not get bored. Toys should be made from wood or ceramics – plastic breaks up into small pieces when nibbled on. The sandbox is always safe. The little rascal can follow his urge to dig in here. Owners often fill half an empty aquarium with quartz sand, litter or peat.

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Variety is the spice of life! Apart from the settling down period, the cage should be changed a little every week to provide variety. Here, some ideas: Build a new run with climbing branches. Give your hamster branches (e.g. hazelnut) to chew on. Provide fresh grass, dandelion leaves or dried leaves for new scents – this stirs curiosity. Your nocturnal co-habitee can crawl and squeeze through an empty kitchen towel insert – and chew on the non-poisonous cardboard. Give the climbing expert some fun with thick ropes, a see-saw or small wooden ladders. Delicious corn sticks make every hamster enthusiastic and are natural training for rodent's teeth.

But for movement the little critters also need an enclosure in addition to a sandbox in which they can rollick around freely. Such a run in the flat can be easily fenced in with chipboard sheets or wooden panels. The room enclosure quickly becomes an adventure playground with stones, branches and artificial caves (wooden box with entrance hole). A large flat bowl with peat and grass invites the chubby-cheeked rodent to start exploring. The cage and run should always be located in a spot which is dark and quiet at night. Those with light sleep should not put hamsters in the bedroom. Now only the mandatory wheel is missing: Hamsters use this to train their stamina at high speed. But careful: wheels can be dangerous! The wheel should be big enough so that the hamster can speed away in it without a hollow back and then nothing bad will happen. The running surface and one side should be closed completely. And there should not be axes or mountings in the way on the exit side in which the hamster could be caught up by accident. By the way never wake up the lively animals during the day and stimulate them to be active! The stress caused by being woken up reduces the life expectancy of the cute animals considerably.