A hamster aged 18 months or older is entering the final months of its lifespan, and behaviors will change. Digging and burrowing will be among the first activities to cease. Choosing an appropriate container is crucial to ensure your hamster’s comfort and safety while digging. Opt for a shallow plastic bin or a glass terrarium with low walls to prevent your hamster from escaping. Make sure the container is spacious enough for your hamster to move around comfortably. A minimum of 12 inches by 8 inches is recommended, but the larger, the better. Ensure that the container is escape-proof and free of any sharp edges or protruding objects that could harm your hamster.

There are three different options for creating a digging area. What they all have in common is that they need a good-sized footprint, so the hamster can tunnel horizontally as well as vertically.If you keep a litter box or sand bath in your hamster’s cage, you may also find them burrowing in there. While it’s no big deal for them to burrow in their sand bath, the litter box may pose a problem. It simply isn’t healthy for any hamster to be burrowing around in his or her waste. Burrowing is a Natural Instinct for Many Hamsters

With buried tunnels and things, I like to do a bit of a mixture. Tunnels at diagonals can be good with sort of one end poking up and looking inviting. Weird-shaped boxes and bits of flat cardboard staggered into the substrate at intervals can be good too, like a sort of subterranean roof. Whether you have the budget for an elaborate enclosure or simply the time for some supervised outside play, these are simple ways to allow your hamster the ability to explore and exercise. Read on for the details on each of these enrichment opportunities. Best Hamster Enrichment Ideas Burrowing And Climbing In the wild, hamsters make burrows, climb and walk for miles each day, so their living space needs to be large enough to allow them to behave as naturally as possible. Most hamster cages sold in shops aren’t big enough to even meet a hamster’s most basic needs, so instead, we recommend providing them with a much larger space, such as an extra-large cage, glass tank, or home-made enclosure. Wherever you choose to house your hamster make sure it has the following: It’s really important to give your hamster a deep (approx. 25cm/10 inches) layer of bedding so they can burrow like they would in the wild. They use the burrow for sleeping, hiding and storing food so it’s important to use a bedding that will hold its structure when tunnelled into. Examples of safe bedding include:Monitor an older hamster’s body temperature, ensuring it remains warm enough to be comfortable. Do Hamsters Burrow When They Die? I also really love providing hay and/or straw. You can mix this in to give a bit more structure to the substrate, or you can just add a layer on top. It provides more depth in a less messy way, and nicely replicates hams walking through natural grasslands. Hay especially can make them smell really nice. i) Scatter feeding, that is sprinkling their dry food around on the substrate rather than feeding from a bowl. This is clearly much more enriching as they're using their brains, and much healthier as you're encouraging movement. Hamsters have excellent noses and their whiskers help them find food too. It gets them used to engaging with the substrate with a clear reward. Once they are happy to hoover around on the surface you can level up the difficulty by deliberately putting the food deep into the substrate/ mixing it up after sprinkling. Hamster balls can be enjoyable for your hamster and for you when used responsibly and for short periods of time. Your hamster cannot eat or drink while in the ball, so should not be left too long. Hamsters love taking sand baths, and if you don’t already have one in your hamster’s enclosure, it is a simple and inexpensive addition to make. A sand bath will consist of a shallow and heavy-bottomed dish and, of course, sand.

Roborovskihamsters are a species that lives primarily in desert areas, so they need more sand in their enclosure. It’s recommended that at least⅓of their cage is covered in sand. Unsafe Types of Hamster Bedding If a hamster is burrowed and isn’t responding to stimuli, uncover it and hold a mirror before its nose. If fog appears on this mirror, the hamster is breathing and thus hibernating. How much bedding you use will also depend on the height and width of your enclosure. If you have a tank that stands at sixteen inches tall, for instance, filling any portion of the tank (even with a partition) with ten inches of bedding doesn’t leave you a lot of space between the top of the enclosure and the mound of bedding. It may also make it difficult for the hamster to access. While adult hamsters usually live alone, they’re still driven by an instinctive urge to bury and hoard food supplies. You’ll find a hamster stuffs its cheek pouches with food and creates hidden food caches. no syrian of mine has ever been fine on a 8" wheel, in fact the only hamster species I'd allow to have an 8" wheel is a roborovski. You need to upgrade that ASAP. Theres no excuse. He's not fine. Worth noting that the hamster heaven is no longer recommended as the base tapers so is actually smaller than the bare minimum of 80x50cm. Bare minimum definition: the smallest you could possibly go before its considered cruel so technically hes not in a suitable environment.

Maintaining and Refreshing the Digging Box

Hamsters won’t necessarily burrow under the substrate when they approach the end of their lives. As discussed, a senior hamster may lose interest in the effort involved with burrowing. Paper-based bedding – this is a really good option and can be used on its own or with other types mixed in. Soft hay – hay is a great addition to any of the beddings above, and will help add extra structure and stability to your hamster’s burrows. Hamsters love to dig – it is an important behaviour for them and it is essential that their cage setup allows them plenty of digging opportunities. Ideally, they should be able to dig anywhere in their cage base, but if it isn’t possible to make that substrate deep enough, then they’ll also need a special digging area.

Your best bet is to add four to seven inches of bedding in the area that’s to be purposed for burrowing and then observe your hamster’s reaction to it. You can easily add more or take some away if you’ve found that this amount is too much or too little.Their bed/nest is very important for hamster mental wellbeing so don’t disturb their beds too often as it will stress them out. Wooden Visible Hamster Digging Box: Measurement: 11.1 x 7.36 x 7.3 inch(ca. 28.3cm x 18.6cm x 18.7cm). Niteangel visible hamster digging box adopts enclosed design, let your little pet can freely explore and play in the digging box, 2.75 inches top exit convenient small pets in and out, it not only can be filled with bedding for small animals for hidden games, but also be used as a storehouses to store food or favorite toys for hamsters. Add bedding or other burrowing material, whichever you choose and is safe for your pet. Some hamster owners like to use the (unscented) tissues that came in the tissue boxes in the first place.