i did a video like this one many many years ago but since then i've learned
so much more about hamster care and proper hamster enrichment
so i wanted to redo that and show you physically why small cages like this one just aren't suitable
this enclosure here is advertised as a starter enclosure which
really no animals home should be a starter they should just
start out with a good home but this enclosure here is 9 inches tall by 15 inches long and 10 inches
wide giving you a total of 150 square inches of floor space and a base pan depth of 2.5 inches
and this is around the average size a pet store cage is going to be
some may be slightly larger some maybe even smaller
but i don't think it really matters because either way they are still too small
so the first thing that you would do when you're setting up your hamsters enclosure
is you're going to provide them with bedding if you didn't know hamsters are burrowers so they
can burrow really really deep in the wild they create these really intricate
systems where they have storage for their food,
an area to go to the bathroom, a nest area and just multiple different little chambers for them
to do different things have different purposes so in captivity we should be providing them with
deep substrates so that they're able to replicate something similar to how they would in the wild
so a suitable amount of bedding for your hamster to actually be able to burrow and perform a
natural behavior would be around 6 inches at minimum but I personally would recommend
10 inches of bedding now with a pan depth of only 2.5 inches you're never going to be
able to provide your hamster with the amount of bedding they need to actually create a burrow
but we can try
okay let's see
um okay
well this is going to be a big mess so
um let's see where's my tape measure
i've managed to kind of fit 4 inches but we have not even placed the lid on so
the next thing your hamster is going to need in their enclosure is some sort of
hideout this is so that they can have a place to feel safe and some privacy and
a lot of hideouts in the pet store tend to be a little bit too small for the hamster
i myself prefer a multi-chambered hideout
which looks like this
this gives the hamster an opportunity to kind of create those different chambers
like we talked about for burrowing so this one has six chambers in there and then they can
kind of burrow under from there it's kind of like a starter to it
this is a syrian sized one but a dwarf sized multi-chamber hideout wouldn't be
much smaller um so
unfortunately this wouldn't even- this is bigger than the cage itself
so because that doesn't fit um i have one of the small igloos here that they sell for hamsters i'm
not a big fan of these as hideouts just because of how opaque it is um it lets a lot of light in so
it's kind of hard for an animal to sleep when there's light coming in and also it is a plastic
so it can get really humid inside really quick but it's what's gonna fit in here so
we'll have to deal with that
now the next thing we're going to need is a wheel especially with such a small enclosure for a dwarf
hamster I'd recommend an 8 to 12-inch wheel and for a Syrian I'd recommend a 10 to 12-inch wheel
this here is an 11-inch wodent wheel so that would probably
it's not going to fit um i also have
a 9-inch wheel here it's it still wouldn't be any better but maybe we'll just do that
there we go
the next thing you're going to need is a sand bath and this is not optional unless
your hamster has health issues a sand bath is a way for the hamster to actually remove
excess grease from their coat because they can't be bathed in water and it also provides an
enrichment because they like to dig in it or roll in it so it is a necessary item in an enclosure
now sand baths typically are quite large because it's
a small sand bath just isn't going to do the job
it's really not going to fit in this because there just is not any room for it um now is probably
also the time to mention you should be including multiple different substrates in your hamsters
enclosure um whether it be some cocoa soil, the sand bath, cork granules, corn cob bedding,
beech chips, a variety of different substrates it helps a hamster use its senses it's a
different texture it enriches them we're not going to be able to do that with this
so because the sand bath doesn't really
fit we're probably not going to be able to put that in there so no sand bath for you
the next thing we're going to want to put in our hamsters cage is
toys because they do need to be able to do things but it's a little bit hard with the cage so small
my favorite choices of different enrichment involve cork logs and grapevine wood, as well as
some birch tunnels like this and bendable bridges all of these products,
are natural items so they can chew on them safely as well as they have
a lot of different textures which can definitely give them enrichment now the only issue is
we're just not going to have much room
guess we can't put these in there
the last thing i'm going to add into this
um i personally like to use water dishes for my hamsters so we'll just
put that in there and also if anybody says this cork log's too big i also have a smaller
version so maybe we could just- oh you know what that made everything so much better so
um and then to top it all off place your lid on there
and just have it not fit because you've
filled it so much with the proper accessories that it's just not gonna fit um and so yeah that's
this is why small enclosures like this are not suitable because having an enclosure like this
means you're only going to be able to provide this
even with less than bare minimum accessories the hamster wheel that is pretty much bare minimum
for a dwarf hamster isn't even going to fit into this i can't clip the lid down because it's it's
too tall for this enclosure not to mention we've had to remove even more bedding because it's just
not going to fit which the hamster doesn't get to burrow then all we've been able to fit in here is
a transparent hideout that's really not the best for them and a wooden tunnel no sand bath, no
other accessories, no multiple substrates, no deep bedding, no suitable sized wheel would be able to
fit i hope that kind of puts it into perspective as to why cages this small just aren't suitable
a hamster should not have to live with less than bare minimum a hamster should not just have to
live into a cage that has very little bedding and a hideout and a wheel and a water and food dish
that is not a thriving pet and that is doing less than the bare minimum for your pet
they need to be able to have enrichment so that they can be happy and perform natural behaviors
when they can't do that your hamster is just going to end up in a life of boredom and stress
and likely just become super lazy because there is nothing else for them to do
I personally would recommend an enclosure with at least 800 square inches of floor space
because that is going to be able to allow you to provide at least
the bare minimum of supplies and enrichment and i'll show you
so inside of this 20 by 40-inch square we would be able to fit
a proper sized wheel
a suitable sized and enriching hideout
a proper sized sand bath
and room for other types of enrichment
and we even have room for the water dish
so as you can see this enclosure size is able to fit everything a hamster would potentially need
to thrive and keep in mind even an enclosure this size can still have an unhappy hamster
this is how important cage size is to a hamster they need so much room and so many different
things for them to do and keep their brains occupied so that they can actually thrive
hamsters are not novelty decoration pets that you can just put into a
tiny enclosure and keep them in your living room and do absolutely nothing with
so i really hope this puts it into perspective for anybody who may have a small enclosure
i have a lot of other videos on cage size as well as hamster enrichment and how to provide
proper hamster enrichment that i will leave linked and i hope this has been
able to open some people's minds as to why small store-bought cages like that one
are not suitable for a hamster
so yeah guys i'll see you in my next video bye