How To Choose A Hamster Cage

Hi. My name's Marie. I'm the deputy manager of the Small Animal Department of Wood Green Animal Shelters in Cambridge here and I'm going to advise you how to care for hamsters.

I'm going to tell you how to choose a hamster cage. When considering a cage, you need to decide which breed of hamsters you're going for. They're all going to need different requirements so make sure you know which specie you're going for first and then you can use a suitable cage.

Roborovski, being one of the smallest breeds of hamster, is going to need a secure tank that it can't escape from. They're very small and they can squeeze through bars. One of the best setups is either a glass fish tank or even a homemade cage like this which is a plastic storage tank and that's being made with a secure mesh on the front.

Roborovskis are quite small hamsters and they're very light and delicate so they can't do much climbing. So with Roborovskis, it's more about the space and the land that they can travel more than the height. So, aim for something around 3 feet in length so they've really got lots of space and fill that with enrichment.

Choose shredded paper or Carefresh to go on the base and lots of enrichment in there to keep them busy. Scatter food that are dry mixed. They've got to forage to encourage natural behaviour.

The other one you'll have is a suitable Syrian hamster cage. Syrian hamsters are one of the biggest breeds and they are really active. They need a lot of space.

The smallest type of hamster cage would be a mesh one at the small range of a rat sized cage. You want to make sure it's got small bars but the cage is as big as possible so aim for one at least three feet in length and as tall as you can. Often, the Freddy's and the Jenny rat cages are fantastic for Syrian hamsters.

Syrian hamsters are quite keen diggers and chewers and they will have a little go at escaping, so the bigger cage and more enrichment you can provide them, the happier and calmer they will be. Lastly, we've got hamster cage which will be suitable for the Russian breeds and also with the Roborovskis and Chinese breeds. This one's suitable.

It's around three feet in length and it's got several glass shelves and what you can do is fill it with different types of enrichment. You can add ladders in there. The Russian hamsters can climb them so you can add different tubes and they can choose different levels.

Don't be afraid to use different substrates on levels. You could use shredded paper on one, you could chinchilla sand on another and Carefresh on another. Give them variety.

Small breed hamsters are better off going in glass tanks of plastic storage hubs as they can escape through small mesh bars, and a lot of the Syrian and standard hamster cages in the markets nowadays are too small for them. So, really do look into larger accommodation that you can afford. And that's how to choose hamster cage. .