hey guys and welcome back to our channelin today's video we are going to be talking about how to set up yourhamsters enclosure now the first thing of course is you're going to need anenclosure we want to make sure we have a large hamster cage because just becausehamsters are
small animals does not mean they can be put into small cages theyhave a lot of energy and they need a lot of room to do their natural behaviorsnow the first thing we're going to want to put into our hamsters cage is asubstrate and this needs to be a
safe substrate because hamsters are burrowersso they are going to need something to burrow in we are going to want to use asafe option such as paper based bedding Aspen wood shavings, hemp shavings we aregoing to want to avoid any soft wood shavings, cedar shavings, pine shavings,any scented beddings
as well as we don't want to use fleece because once againhamsters need to be able to burrow so we're gonna want to make sure we put alot of depth in our hamsters cage because they need to be able to burrownot just dig because those aren't the same things
for a minimum I wouldrecommend having at least six inches in a section and a lot of hamsters actuallyhave been found to not start burrowing until they've been given at least teninches or more the next thing you're going to want to put into your hamsterscage is a hideout this
is really important because this gives yourhamster a place to feel safe, protected have their own privacy, go to sleep inyou can have multiple hideouts in the enclosure so your hamster can pick andchoose the one I have in the video here is just a multi chamber hideout and thiskind
of just mimics how a hamster would live in the wild the next thing you'regoing to need in your hamsters cage is a wheel this is super important and we'regoing to want to make sure we have a safe hamster wheel we want to avoidusing anything that has wire or
mesh and it needs to be a suitable size for dwarfhamsters I would recommend a wheel of eight inch or larger and for Syriansand Chinese hamsters I recommend 10 to 12 inches remember you can never havetoo big of a wheel the bigger the better and the less likely to
hurt your hamster the next thing you're going to want to put into your hamsters cage is a sandbath this is really important because hamsters can't be bathed in water, watercan have some negative effects on hamsters so sand is the best way to gosand helps hamsters remove any excess
oils on their coats as well it givesthem another texture to dig in make sure you have a big sand bath so that they'reable to actually move around in it as well as I would recommend putting ahideout or some type of covering on it because a hamster will be
more likely touse the sand bath if they feel safe and kind of hidden another thing is yes alot of hamsters use their sand baths as their potty which in my opinion is fineit just makes spot cleaning the enclosure just a little bit more easier of course, we're going
to need some sandto fill our bath sand with you can use safe options such as Children's playsand, chinchilla bathing sand or reptile sand without any added calcium or dyeswe are going to want to avoid things like chinchilla bath dust or critterbath powder or hamster powder as these can
cause our hamsters to developrespiratory infections next is the fun part and that is putting in ouraccessories and toys you can pick a variety of accessories and toys for yourhamsters cage I personally go with more natural products such as cork logs andgrapevine wood and a lot of different tubes
these kind of mimic the textures ahamster would naturally be walking on and touching but you can use plastic itemsand a lot of other hamster toys and accessories just make sure they aregoing to fit the species you've chosen you really don't want your hamstergetting stuck in anything too small
for them another thing that I wouldrecommend is making your cage semi crowded now when we're using a largecage we don't want to have too much open space because hamsters are prey animalsso we don't want them to feel unsafe or out in the open and just not want tocome
out so we want to kind of fill it up with a lot of the accessories have alot of spots where there's little nooks and crannies for them to hide in gounder things like that so they feel a lot safer in their enclosure of coursedon't crowd it so much
that your hamster literally can't walk but make it semicrowded next our gonna need some chew toysbecause hamsters have continuously growing teeth so they need something tognaw on something that's natural remember that hamsters chewing on metalbars is not a natural behavior and that's not them trying to wear downtheir
teeth it means they're stressed there are a variety of different typesof chew toys out there I recommend just buying a bunch of different types andseeing which your hamster likes the best next you're going to need a food andwater source you can use a food dish or you can
also scatter feed your hamsterthat just allows them to get more enrichment as well as you can use awater dish or you can use a water bottle either option is fine The next thingthat I like to add into my enclosures and I recommend others to add into theirenclosures because
it helps us provide the hamster a little bit more enrichmentis some hamster safe dried herbs as well as some soft hay herbs are great becausethey have great natural properties as well as they're great for foraging andsoft Hays like orchard grass hay and botanical hay both make for makingburrows
stable it also allows the hamster to use it as some nesting ifthey want to just remember don't use any rough Hays like timothy hay this can endup with your hamster getting poked in the eye or poking their cheek pouchwhich we don't want and that is the gist of
setting up ahamsters enclosure I hope this video is helpful and I will see you guys in mynext video bye
