Meet Little Cow!

[Maz]

Ok - I've swapped Syrian houses out for bigger/different ones before and it works really well as long as you put it where the old one is - ie over the existing nest. I wouldn't worry about that. You can have more issues leaving the old one in as well as then they get confused and can't decide which one to use or seem a bit bothered about what to do with the old one.

It's logical really - it's the dark space the makes the hamster like the house rather than the house itself. The new one won't have their scent but they soon fix that! You can sometimes hear scratching and banging inside when they move in - as if they are claiming it!

So providing it will fit, I would just swap out the house for the new one but don't remove any nesting material - just leave that in the same place (or move it to one of the rooms in the house that you think would be the best nesting area.

The other thing is - they often approve of new changes if they see it as an improvement. You could use the old house in a playpen for out of cage time maybe.

I think the acrylic sand bath would be too big to fit in the house. I'm not sure of the dimensions, but it looks quite high at the back. I get these

If you check the dimensions of this, it doesn't want to be any bigger and will fit in a room in a house (providing it's a syrian sized house). They're a good size for a syrian - they tend to pee in the back corner and sometimes sit for a wash in the front part.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00178PJ3M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Having said all that - the current house looks like a really nice size and quite big and maybe you could try putting a small litter tray (eg a dwarf sized one) in one corner of that, and a bendy bridge or tunnel over the door to make it darker.

 

[Little Cow]

If she’s had that house all her life then she might get upset or stressed if you took it out, you can’t really guess how they’ll react in advance, i was wondering if maybe you could put a larger multi chamber house where her water bottle is, & put the water bottle somewhere else if there’s room in there then if she does get on well with the new house you might be able to remove the old one later to free up some space.
She might be ok if you just swapped them over as long as you kept the substrate, hoard & nest from the old house & put it back in the new one.
I’m not sure of the size for a Syrian house, someone else will know but a dwarf house is much smaller so I’d be careful to check out the size first.
I would put in a second smaller litter tray for peeing in, they sometimes use both but it’s easy enough to sieve out any clumps if they use the main one but they are more likely to use on close to or in the house if they have one.

Thank you Elusive! So very helpful!!!

 

[Maz]

I have a feeling the niteangel house you linked may be the small one, for dwarf hamsters, by the price. On this link there are two different sizes and the larger one costs a bit more.

The difficulty with that particular corner shaped house is it looks like it won't fit where the current one is, due to the platform with the water bottle, and ideally you want to avoid changing other things at the same time or it may stress her out.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Niteangel%C2%AE-Multi-Chamber-Hamster-House-Maze/dp/B083S6W3MG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=R8ZGHYQKHGKW&keywords=niteangel%2Bcorner%2Bhouse&qid=1695149290&s=pet-supplies&sprefix=niteangel%2Bcorner%2Bhouse%2Cpets%2C124&sr=1-3&th=1

A larger multi chamber house at that end though, could replace the house and platform at that end and have the water bottle on top of the house instead (the house roof would effectively make the platform). And that wouldn't be too big a change. I think that's what Elusive was suggesting.

Eg this one - 6 room large

This is virtually identical to the one I have for our syrian. It would need to be on stilts.

https://www.amazon.com/Niteangel-6-Chamber-Hamster-House-Maze/dp/B083HXCC3W/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8BDEEEY4A95C&keywords=niteangel%2Bmulti%2Bchamber%2Bhouse&qid=1695149736&sprefix=niteangel%2Bmultichambe%2Bhouse%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

 

[Little Cow]

Ok - I've swapped Syrian houses out for bigger/different ones before and it works really well as long as you put it where the old one is - ie over the existing nest. I wouldn't worry about that. You can have more issues leaving the old one in as well as then they get confused and can't decide which one to use or seem a bit bothered about what to do with the old one.

It's logical really - it's the dark space the makes the hamster like the house rather than the house itself. The new one won't have their scent but they soon fix that! You can sometimes hear scratching and banging inside when they move in - as if they are claiming it!

So providing it will fit, I would just swap out the house for the new one but don't remove any nesting material - just leave that in the same place (or move it to one of the rooms in the house that you think would be the best nesting area.

The other thing is - they often approve of new changes if they see it as an improvement. You could use the old house in a playpen for out of cage time maybe.

I think the acrylic sand bath would be too big to fit in the house. I'm not sure of the dimensions, but it looks quite high at the back. I get these

If you check the dimensions of this, it doesn't want to be any bigger and will fit in a room in a house (providing it's a syrian sized house). They're a good size for a syrian - they tend to pee in the back corner and sometimes sit for a wash in the front part.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00178PJ3M/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Having said all that - the current house looks like a really nice size and quite big and maybe you could try putting a small litter tray (eg a dwarf sized one) in one corner of that, and a bendy bridge or tunnel over the door to make it darker.

That all makes sense! Thank you for your quick reply!

 

[Little Cow]

I have a feeling the niteangel house you linked may be the small one, for dwarf hamsters, by the price. On this link there are two different sizes and the larger one costs a bit more.

The difficulty with that particular corner shaped house is it looks like it won't fit where the current one is, due to the platform with the water bottle, and ideally you want to avoid changing other things at the same time or it may stress her out.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Niteangel%C2%AE-Multi-Chamber-Hamster-House-Maze/dp/B083S6W3MG/ref=sr_1_3?crid=R8ZGHYQKHGKW&keywords=niteangel%2Bcorner%2Bhouse&qid=1695149290&s=pet-supplies&sprefix=niteangel%2Bcorner%2Bhouse%2Cpets%2C124&sr=1-3&th=1

A larger multi chamber house at that end though, could replace the house and platform at that end and have the water bottle on top of the house instead (the house roof would effectively make the platform). And that wouldn't be too big a change. I think that's what Elusive was suggesting.

Eg this one - 6 room large

This is virtually identical to the one I have for our syrian. It would need to be on stilts.

https://www.amazon.com/Niteangel-6-Chamber-Hamster-House-Maze/dp/B083HXCC3W/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8BDEEEY4A95C&keywords=niteangel%2Bmulti%2Bchamber%2Bhouse&qid=1695149736&sprefix=niteangel%2Bmultichambe%2Bhouse%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

So helpful! Thank you!

 

[Maz]

Six rooms might sound a lot but one is a definite nesting room, around two corners so dark, and one fits a toilet - the others may or may not be used but they seem to like the space - and one is under the top entrance.

 

[Maz]

This is a photo of my Syrian's previous cage - different kind of set up as it's a barred cage, but you can see the multiroom house on the left is more or less a platform that is the full width of the cage. I think it's the same size as the one linked above. So it makes both a house with two entrances, and a platform as well. All our Syrians have loved this house.

 

[Little Cow]

Hello! Happy Monday to you all. Sooo I bought Little Cow a corner sand bath that she’ll hopefully use as her potty! We put it in one of the corners she often goes in. It’s right next to her house. We did consider removing her existing house and replace that area with a chambered house, but we didn’t have the heart to take away her existing house. So we opted for this sand bath and placed it NEXT to the house which is a corner she often pees in. We only had to move her existing house down a few inches in order to fit the corner bath/potty. So my daughter captured a video of her in the sand bath last night. She was scurrying and scratching in the corner so much. We can’t tell if she was just playing, cleaning, etc OR if our poor baby was stressed out and was trying to find bedding to pee on. It looked at if she were trying to get out of the cage.
We just want her to be a happy baby!!

I tried to attach the video to show you but it wouldn’t let me do it. Can we only attach photos? Not videos?

 

[Maz]

That sounds great To attach videos they need to be uploaded to youtube and then you paste the link here and the video is embedded in the post and can be watched from within the post If you set the video to unlisted then it can't be viewed publicly and can only be viewed where you paste the link.

 

[elusive]

That sounds like it will be nice for her, it is sometimes hard to tell quite what thier behaviour means but she was most likely just exploring something new.

 

[ilguy]

You can also use ********** to upload a video that can only be accessed with the link provided. It's free, and also temporary. Old videos eventually get deleted, I like it a lot:

https://**********.com/