Unsure about cage cleaning

[soaringtacocat123]

Hi everyone! I haven’t been on here in quite some time but Yolandi is still doing perfectly fine. I’ve made a lot of progress with her over the summer!! She has let me pick her up, I’ve gotten her free roaming and she’s comfortable being in my lap and coming to my hands, and she seems to be acclimating well.

My concern right now is about cage cleaning. I haven’t yet done anything more than spot cleaning and I’ve owned her for almost two months now. Also, in the last week or so, I can’t find out where she’s been using the bathroom. I’m worried that she’s doing so in her burrow and I don’t wanna ruin her burrow. I really don’t know what I should be doing about this.

Otherwise, I have been adding more to her cage such as clutter and things, and she seems a lot happier! While she used to climb on the vents in the back of her cage and chew them, she hasn’t done that at all and she doesn’t seem stressed in the slightest. I am still going to be upgrading her cage, but for now, I think she is okay.

If anyone has any suggestions for deep cleaning and stuff without stressing my hamster out, please reply! It helps a ton.

This is her cage right now by the way. I have more wood and a new tunnel coming as well as an actual three chamber hide rather than the carboard one since she chewed the panel in it

 

[Maz]

Sorry you haven't had a reply before! It can be very difficult if not sure where they are paying. In that situation, and assuming you can't smell anything, it might be better to wait a bit longer and then do a "third" cage clean. Where you divide the cage (mentally) into 3 1/3rds along the length. And choose on of those thirds to clean out. If you have an idea where she might be nesting you could do that third first. For example one of mine was nesting under his multiroom house at one end, so I cleaned out that third/end first, and his pee area was under there. If you still don't find the pee area, wait a couple of weeks and then do another "third".

Tino had me fooled at one point as I didn't find anything at his house end. It was when I did the middle third I found he was nesting and sleeping at the back in the middle (not far from his wheel but underground).

With a third clean, you remove all the enrichment items from that third, then remove all the substrate, wipe the base of the enclosure, but put about half the substrate back that you've just removed (ie clean substrate), add new substrate, mix it in so it smells familiar (or put some of the old substrate back on top of the new so it smells familiar), and then replace all the enrichment items. That way the majority of the cage is unchanged and it doesn't stress the hamster out.