5 essential cage items for your hamster
There are many toys and accessories that you can use to spruce up your hamster’s habitat with. Some owners may have the luxury of space and are so talented with habitat interior designs, that their lucky hamsters have the biggest cages and a beautiful home to live and play in. Some of us may have to be more realistic due to space constraints and are practical with our cage interiors. Regardless of how you create your hamster’s habitat to be, it does not matter so long as the important criteria to create a safe and happy environment are met. Some important criteria are:
A cage that is big enough in proportion to the size of your hamster.Bigger is always better or course, but the bare minimum cage size for a Syrian hamster should be 80cm (L) x 50cm (W) x 35cm (H).Mouse’s current cage is 90cm (L) x 60cm (W) x 45cm (H).Ideally, I would love to get Mouse an even bigger habitat, but we live in a little cottage with a tiny little living room and this is as big as we can go.However, Mouse is perfectly happy in her habitat and there are some hacks that I use to compensate for the space constraint and maximise the available space.I will do a separate blog post on this.
No holes or weak structures that your hamster can break out of and escape from
A fresh supply of food and water
Accessories that are not too high in height or have little gaps that your hamster’s feet and paws may get trapped in.Hamsters may think themselves to be very good climbers but they aren’t as sure-footed as their rodent relatives such as rats and gerbils.They can climb, but due to their bad eye sight, they may slip, fall and hurt themselves from high heights. Personally, I do not recommend any sort of climbing frames for hamster owners.
I think these are some examples of the bare minimum of what I would have in my hamster’s cage. However, there are some other things that I find are essential too. here are 5 things that I always have available in Mouse’s habitat.
1. A good sized wheel
A good size wheel for an adult Syrian hamster is 28cm/11inch. One good indication of whether a wheel is the right size is if your hamster’s back is flat when running it’s wheel. However, I also believe in providing the right size wheel in proportion to your hamster’s size.
For example, Mouse is quite a small hamster. When she was younger, I tried giving her a 28cm wheel and she really struggled to use it comfortably. Sure, her back was flat, and she had ample space when running the it. However, as she was so small, she had to work extra hard to get the wheel moving effortlessly and stopped using it. Then I got her a smaller, 22cm wheel and she took to it like fish to water. Now that she is adult size, she has outgrown her old wheel and I replaced it with a 28cm one.
One very straightforward indication on whether you have the right size wheel for your hamster is how often your hamster uses it. If your hamster does not use its wheel every night, or gives up after a few spins, there is a good chance the wheel isn’t big enough. Of course, there are super lazy hamsters that hate exercise but I think most hamsters enjoy running at night so a comfortable size wheel is important.
You can get 28cm wheels here:
It is very important to know that not all wheels are safe for hamsters. Stay clear from wired, mesh wheels. Those are bad from your hamster’s feet.
2. Bath sand
One thing that Mouse love having in her cage is a sand bath. There's a common misconception that bath sand is just for "bathing". Hamsters use it as a potty too. Mouse loves digging around in the sand and would use that as a pee spot. Using her bath sand as a potty also means that Mouse's cage stays smelling fresher over longer periods of time, and less need to spot clean. However, remember there is a difference between bath sand and chinchilla bath dust. The dust version is bad for a hamster’s respiratory system and should never be used. You can buy the bath sand I use here: Supreme Pet Foods Science Bathing Sand
Pour the sand into a ceramic dish deep enough for your hamster to dig and roll about in. A ceramic/glass bowl is very easy to clean. A dog bowl is a good option. I have recently replaced Mouse’s sand bowl with a glass jar.
However, if you like the idea of a dog bowl, this is the exact version of the one I used:
3. Good quality dust free bedding
Over the years, I found that Carefresh bedding is the best. There may be a lot more options out there but it is important that the bedding you use is highly absorbent and dust free. Dusty bedding like saw dust would irritate a hamster’s nose and respiratory system. Not all Carefresh bedding is good. Recently, I used Carefresh’s confetti range in Mouse’s cage and she was sneezing because it was dusty. Once I switched back to her normal white/natural version, her cold went away.
The current bedding from Carefresh that I’m using is:
The natural range: Absorption Corp Carefresh Natural Bedding 10 liters
The white range: Carefresh 10ltr - Ultra
Additionally, I always clean and disinfect Mouse’s case with a hamster-safe disinfectant. This is the exact one that I use: Jvp Small Animal Clean 'n' Safe Disinfectant
It’s super convenient to use and neither Sponge nor Mouse ever reacted badly to it.
4. Soft bedding that is good for nest building
Hamsters are obsessed with making nests. I used to give Mouse/Sponge shredded toilet paper/kitchen towels but after discovering this super soft bedding, I have stopped DIY-ing and started spoiling Mouse with this: Petlife Safebed Paper Wool Small Animal Bedding
5. Wooden hamster houses
I like putting two houses in Mouse's cage. They provide her not only with a safe hideout to build a nest in, but having two houses gives her the option to choose which one she prefers. I found an interesting thing about Mouse recently.
She has two houses, one which she chews on, and one that she uses as a nest to sleep and live in. One day, I found that she had moved nests and was sleeping in the house that she had been savagely chewing on. This is very out of character for her until I poured out the contents of the nest that she had abandoned and realised it was dirty. Once I replaced her abandoned nest with fresh bedding, she immediately moved back to her beloved nest in a heartbeat. From this, I learnt that it is actually useful to provide hamsters with more than one safe place for “emergencies” like the example I had given.
Personally, I prefer wooden houses to plastic ones. Wooden ones must be changed once in a while since they get stained and dirty as compared to plastic ones. Additionally, wooden ones are great for chewing on as hamsters need to keep their ever-growing teeth trimmed.
These are some of the houses I have been eyeing to replace Mouse’s ones.
Lots of love and fluff,
Mouse and Rach
