as you may know Mabel my two-year-old female Syrian hamster was put to sleep on March 6th
her quality of life was no longer there as she had lost all of her muscle mass was eating less and
her squinting eyes indicated that she likely was in pain
now because of this I thought it would be a good time to discuss what to do after your hamster has passed away and how to sanitize
old supplies in order to use them for other animals safely
no matter what losing a pet can be difficult and grieving comes in many ways if you don't find yourself traditionally
sad about the loss of your hamster that is okay and if you cannot stop crying that is also okay
once your hamster has passed you will have two options cremation or burial. Cremation is done at
your local vet clinic and typically can be on the pricier side therefore, many people end up choosing
to bury their hamster
if you don't have a yard or somewhere you can bury your hamster you can choose to get a deep plant pot to bury them in
and that way you can also have a flower bloom from it
now if you decide you want another hamster or to use some accessories with your other pets
don't worry you don't have to buy new ones and you can reuse your current things
starting with the cage first thing is to clean it out thoroughly
already used bedding should not be used again with another hamster
once you've got all the accessories and bedding out depending on the material your cage is made from is how you'll go about cleaning it
glass and plastic enclosures can be cleaned with soap and hot water or diluted vinegar
as for a wooden enclosure now IF you know your hamster has passed from something possibly contagious
I would be less inclined to reuse it but if your hamster past of natural causes then I would use diluted vinegar to wipe it down and let it air dry for a couple of days
if there are any sort of stains you can use sandpaper to try and remove them
moving on to accessories plastic and ceramic items are easy as most can be washed with soap and water or put through the dishwasher
wooden items like cork logs, Bridges, vine wood, Willow tunnels, platforms, chamber hides Etc are also capable of being reused
if your hamster has peed on any I would first start by wiping it down with a wet cloth. If you used a hamster safe varnish on it it should be
relatively easy to wipe off
at the end of Mabel's life she did start peeing a lot on the top of her Hideout but because I had a varnish on it
it wiped off really really easily as you can see
if you didn't use a varnish once again using a bit of sandpaper can help remove some of the stainings
now to sanitize them you can put them in the oven, this might be shocking to most people
because obviously wood plus heat equals fire but this is only the case in high temperatures
wood in an oven only ignites after a few hours in temps of 450 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit and we'll
only be putting the oven at no higher than 200 degrees Fahrenheit for around 30 minutes
if you choose a lower temp you'll want to bake it for longer and to be safe keep an eye on the oven
just to be safe while baking the items
also yes a lot of the times I use my bare hands when taking items out just remember the oven is hot and doing this is at your own risk
if you're unable to use the oven you can instead boil wooden items but this may be trickier with larger wooden items
and can take longer since you'll need to air dry them after
and there you go you now have a bunch
of sanitized hamster items that you're capable of reusing hopefully this video has been able to help
you guys if you've recently just had a hamster pass and I will see you guys in my next video bye