so a lot of the times when I tell people the bare minimum for a hamsters cage is
450 square inches of floor space they don't quite understand why does such a
small animal need such a large enclosure hamsters while they are a domesticated
animal haven't nearly been domesticated as long as dogs or cats who have been
domesticated for thousands of years whereas hamsters have maybe only been
domesticated for about 80 years and actually some species have been
domesticated for even less than that so hamsters still are very similar to their
wild ancestors in the wild hamsters have been found to travel five and a half
miles per night while they're doing this traveling they are foraging for food
they are looking for nesting they are getting their energy out and they are
burrowing as well hamsters in the wild have been found to burrow as deep down
as 31 inches as you may know one of the most important things a hamster needs in
their cage is a wheel this is a necessity everybody will tell you you
need a wheel for your hamster because they need something to get their energy
out because they have a lot of energy but a wheel should never make up for a
small enclosure a hamster should be able to get out a lot of their energy from
the wheel but they as well as should be able to get energy out by doing things
like foraging looking for nesting burrowing all those types of natural
instincts this is why I taking such a high-energy animal and putting it in
something like a critter trail just isn't okay they really do need that
space there have been studies done that have proven that small hamster cages
have serious effects on hamsters having a small hamster cage can lead to cage
aggression, bar biting, monkey baring as well as low activity levels. in 2007
there was a study done to show how small cages affect
hamsters they took sixty female Syrian hamsters and they place them in four
different sized enclosures the enclosure sizes were 279 square inches, 387 square
inches, 775 square inches and 1550 square inches so the frequency and duration of
bar chewing was significantly higher when hamsters were placed in these
smaller cages rather than the larger cages so it was suggested that the
welfare of the hamsters life may be improved by giving them a cage as large
as 1550 square inches of floor space now keep in mind that some hamsters did
still bar chew in a cage that large that should just go to show you that even
that may not be large enough for a hamster because these animals really do
need a lot of space in all honesty they probably should have never been
domesticated because we can't really provide them what they actually need. Bar
biting is not a normal behavior and it actually is a behavior caused by
psychological stress. Another study was done and it showed that hamsters and
smaller cages actually had an increased overall body temperature this indicates
that housing a hamster in a smaller cage does cause chronic stress. larger
cages for your hamster does improve their quality of life as well as it can
save you a lot of time and money so when you have a small cage that is under the
bare minimum you are going to have to clean this cage out a lot more often so
you're probably going to have to be changing that bedding once a week
because it gets dirty a lot faster when you're changing the bedding once a week
that means you're going to have to buy more bedding more often when you have a
larger cage you do not have to clean the cage once a week it's never actually
recommended to ever really clean your cage once a week because it's super
stressful for your hamster with a large cage that's above the bare minimum of
450 square inches of floor space you really only need to have clean
once a month with spot cleanings every couple days because you shouldn't remove
all of that bedding because it is stressful to your hamster and if you're
not removing all of that bedding a lot of the times you're saving money because
you don't have to buy as much bedding another thing that people have brought
up on my channel so many times and it's getting a little frustrating is what if
you can't afford a large cage or large cages are expensive I do want to point
out that if you can't afford your animals basic requirements then it's
suggested that you don't get one at all because that's not fair to the animal
there's also a lot of ways to get large cages for low prices, bin cages are great
they're easy to make as well as you can get them for less than $30 you can buy
used aquariums on buy and sell websites Petco if you have a Petco near you has a
dollar per gallon sale I think four times a year and the forty gallon
aquarium tank is only fifty dollars during the sale as well as you can get
to the IKEA detolf this is equivalent to a 90 gallon aquarium and it's only $70
and you can always DIY and refurbish old furniture into a hamster cage it's very
simple you just need some wood maybe some plexiglass some rodent mesh and you
can be as creative as you want and plus then you're repurposing an old piece of
furniture another comment that I get is I have a small cage but I make up for it
by giving my hamster a lot of playtime this only would work if you are giving
your hamster supervised playtime during the night
this is because hamsters are nocturnal so they're most active during the night
that's the most important time that they have the most amount of space and many
people are not willing to stay up all night supervising their hamster play so
that's why it really doesn't make up for a small cage in all honesty if small
cages were okay countries like Germany wouldn't have such large bare minimums
that are enforced by their veterinarian association for welfare they have such
large minimums because they actually understand how much space hamsters need
which is awesome that they understand that I wish other countries did too this
video was not meant to put anybody down who owns a small hamster cage but only
to inform them as to why it is so important that hamsters have such large
hamster cages and if you have something that is under the bare minimum I really
would highly suggest upgrading for the sake of your hamsters quality of life
because small hamster cages do have effects on the hamsters physical and
mental health so yeah guys I really hope this video has helped thank you for
watching bye