I'd like to get my baby a new cage! Opinions..

[animalmagic]

I'm not often on this forum, I'm mainly on the rabbit forum due to recently getting my new bunnies!
But I was thinking today that I've been spoiling the new additions very much and thinking maybe my little dude Neville the hamster has been feeling left out.

So I've decided I'm gonna treat him to a new cage. The one he has now is okay, it's big enough but I'd like to get him something he can really live the life of luxury in!

Do you think I should get a standard cage? Or make him one of the bin cages? I thought about making him a plastic bin thing today but it proved more difficult than I'd thought, e.g: how do I attach the wheel and water bottle?

I just wanna spoil the little guy.. he's such a sweetie :o

[HunnyBunnies]

Hey just an idea...we have a dwarf hamster (but obviously it would work for your Syrian too) and we have a standard cage (Habitrail Mini) with tubing going into a bin. The best of both worlds and he really loves it. When he is calm and wants to be cozy he can cuddle up in his cage and when he is wild and crazy he can have tons of room in his bin.
That way we have his water bottle and wheel and stuff in his cage and different toys that don't require attachment to anything in his bin. We sometimes actually put tubing in the bottom of the bin and he loves to climb through that too. It gives you the opportunity for so much more variety with a bin I find. So, I am all for the best fo both worlds! Cage and a bin :D

[HunnyBunnies]

Just to give you an idea of our setup...and of course I take advantage of every opportunity to show off our little hunny or his home :)

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/krystalashley48/36.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/krystalashley48/9.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/krystalashley48/37.jpg

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/krystalashley48/38.jpg

[dwankrista]

^ that setup makes me wish i were a hammy.
lol

[animalmagic]

Ahhh I see.. that's quite a nice idea. Seems less effort than having to drill holes to fit the bottle and wheel. Although if anyone's come up with a simple-ish way to do it.. let me know!

[animalmagic]

I thought hamsters weren't supposed to have hay as their bedding? Maybe I made that up. Hmm..?

[HunnyBunnies]

No you are right animalmagic. We did a lot of research before getting our hamster but care books recommended it as an option then when we discovered this site we saw it wasn't a good choice. We are going to finish up the bag of Timothy Hay we have now and then try our hamster with aspen (as that's what members of the forum recommended). Just out of curiousity, do you know why we should not be using hay? We were informed it was because if they try to store it they can hurt their cheek pouches but we have been using it for about 4 months and our hamster just holds it by the middle part to take to his nest. We are switching really soon, we feel bad for wrong doing our little fella, but he loves the hay. I hope he takes well to the change - he is quite easy going most of the time. I really appreciate you pointing that out though, thanks :)

[HunnyBunnies]

Animalmagic I answered my own question I guess...googled "don't use hay for hamsters" lol! Just for future reference for anyone who is curious apparently if you use something like Timothy Hay or Alfalfa it is a snack for hamsters too and if they get greedy they could get kidney stones! YIKES. I am not sure how reliable the source is on that, but I am going to take it serious and switch to Aspen ASAP.

[animalmagic]

It's no problem, I wasn't sure if I was right or not! That's cool that you're switching over though. Poor little fella losing his hay lol! I'm not sure why either, yeah.. I heard about the cheek pouch thing but don't know if that's the only reason?
Hmm anyway! I love your setup though.. thats one lucky little hammy :D

[HunnyBunnies]

I just thought of something...you were looking for an easier way to include the water bottle, wheel etc. I don't know what your wheel and such is like and how exactly it attaches but in a previous pots someone had a pic of their bin arrangement and they had the parts that need to be attached kind of tethered with strings. I don't know how exactly it was done and I guess it would depend on how heavy the things were etc. Just a thought, you may be able to get ti to work if you are more mechanically inclined than I.

[animalmagic]

Just a thought, you may be able to get ti to work if you are more mechanically inclined than I.

Haha somehow I doubt that.. which is why I've always stuck with wire cages for my hamsters in the past. But I'd really like to try the bin setup if I can find an easy, foolproof way to do it! :o

[HunnyBunnies]

So our new hammie has solely a bin setup and we didn't do anything fancy to get it to be functional. We found a fabulous wheel that suction cups onto the bin and it actually does withstand a lot of running and jumping around. We are using the Habitrail mini Msuhroom Oasis which can sit on the ground (doesn't need to be attached any way) but protects the water from all the yucky things in the air and from stuff getting kicked in etc. I have a pic of it in my post showing off pics of our new guy!

[hamsterluver805]

i have a tank for my dwarf hamster and i want to attach an acual cage to it or something so she can have like a sleeping, eating, and feeding area and use my tank as a run around/play area. but for those of you who have like 2 or 3 cages....is it too much to clean?? cuz i think my tank takes long enough to clean but i didnt know how much work is applied to cleaning 2 or 3 cages???

please let me know!

[HunnyBunnies]

We have one hammie who has a bin and a cage attached to it and another hammie who just has a bin, both of these bins are quite huge and in one case there is a lot of tubing involved as well. We don't find it too much work as it is the type of thing that a big part of it is getting all set up to clean the cage, getting the old bedding out, getting all the supplies out that you are going to need etc. Once you get going on cleaning one bin/cage having the additional one(s) doesn't really seem to add much more work. That's just our opinion though. Depending on what type of cage you get/have a lot of them are so cleaner-friendly, we find the cage A LOT less work than our bins.