Cleaning Hamster Cages

For any new hamster owner it is essential to master some of the basics of hamster care. The most important part is keeping the hamster cages clean from feces. I'm sure there are a lot of young readers here so for those who do not know what feces is, it is poop. It is important for any hamster owner to clean their hamster cages on a weekly basis. This means either replacing the newspaper or wooden bedding.

There are many reason why it is important to clean your hamster cage so often. Firstly the hamster cage can begin to smell very bad and reek. You will get a good feel for the amount of urine and turds that your hamster has very quickly. This will only take a few cleanings to determine how often you will need to clean the crap from the bottom of the cage. For some hamster, gerbils, or Guinea pigs you will need to clean every couple days or not for two weeks. Each animal is different and like I said before you will get a nice feel for the level of waste your pet creates after a few clean ups.

The two different choices of liner for a hamster cage is wood chips or newspaper. The benefit of using newspaper is it is really fast to clean the cage. After peeling the matted newspaper off the bottom I advise that you sanitise the metal or plastic bottom. The wood chips come in several different styles. There are the large heavy wood chips. These are not optimal for a small hamster and the wood shavings work much better. If you decide to go with the wooden bottom of the hamster cage it is best to buy the shavings in bulk. Sometimes a hamster ball can get poop and other feces stuck to it if the cage is not clean

You might feel ridiculous walking out of the pet store with a bag of wood chips but this is the most expensive part of owning a hamster. Even more so than the cost of hamster food. Keeping clean hamster cages is key to having a healthy pet.