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25 Sep 2016

Preventing Nasty Hamster Cage Smells

Posted By : Guest

Filed Under : Hamsters | Carefresh | Bedding | Gerbils

Hamsters can make great pets because they're cute, interactive, easy to care for, and fun to watch. One of the drawbacks of having a rodent as a pet, however, is managing odours of both the pet and its habitat. It's usually his urine that stinks so bad. If the smell of your pet hamster's urine is the first thing you notice when you enter the room you keep him in, chances are you need to change how you are taking care of your pet.

Hamsters are not smelly animals -- they're super-clean -- but their cages can develop a serious odour problem if you aren't taking measures to keep bad smells at bay. You can minimize unpleasant smells by understanding the different bedding and substrate options and maintaining an appropriate and effective weekly cleaning schedule of the cage.

Normal Urine Odours

Urinating is one of your hamster's way of removing waste from his body. Urine is a sterile fluid that primarily contains water along with various salts, minerals, toxins, sugars and various compounds. The odour of hamster urine is typically weak, but the smell becomes more noticeable depending on what your hamster has been consuming, whether he is suffering from medical problems and whether you clean his cage as you should. A faint ammonia smell is not uncommon.

Cleaning A Hamster Cage

Spot-clean your hamster's cage once a day by removing all soiled bedding, food and faeces. This will significantly reduce the chance of unpleasant smells developing from your hamster's urine. Urine never smells pleasant, but it will smell a lot worse if mold grows in bedding that has been urinated on. In addition to conducting daily cage cleanings, you should also make a point of emptying your hamster's cage completely every 10-14 days and replacing all his bedding with fresh material. Sterilize toys, food dishes, water bottles and the cage itself, wiping them down with a pet-safe disinfectant cleaning solution.

It is important to remember that cleaning their cage is very stressful for hamsters. Hamsters do a lot of scent marking from their glands and by urine and faeces. New litter will be unmarked and smell strange rather than homely, which stresses them out. So always leave some of the old litter behind in the cage so it still smells like their home.

Choose The Right Bedding

Avoid hay and straw as those two substances, while comfortable for your hamster, are poor at absorbing odour. Your choice of bedding can have a significant effect on how you perceive the smell of your hamster's urine.

Pine bedding is very popular in South Africa for small animals because its cheap, a natural insect repellant and the wood shavings control urine odour. Wood shavings however is not very absorbent and failure to change it every 5-7 days is the most frequent cause of smells developing and can cause the entire room to smell.

Many pet owners enjoy the smell of fresh wood shavings, but the smell is due to compounds called “aromatic hydrocarbons.” Unfortunately, these phenols have been implicated as a potential health risk. They can make your little hamster sick with respiratory problems and changes in the liver with long term exposure. When it comes to the safety and health of your small pets, why risk using wood shavings? Alternatives abound and come with the added benefits being hypoallergenic and better for the environment.

Highly absorbent, paper pulp bedding such as Carefresh is typically better at masking odours for longer periods of time than wood shavings. Carefresh® is the only company to craft their small animal bedding from scratch by blending naturally absorbent, reclaimed paper fibers with proprietary odour control ingredients. With Carefresh you only need to change your hamster's bedding every 21-30 days.

The amount of bedding you use is also important -- inadequate amounts of bedding will not be able to absorb the urine, and liquid will be left behind and cause nasty smells. Hamsters need to dig, so spreading a thick layer of litter of a kind they can dig or even tunnel into will be good for them, if the cage design allows this. A minimum depth of 5-10cm of bedding will allow digging and burrowing and enhances their welfare. If your cage doesn’t allow deep litter, then make up for this by being lavish with the bedding.

Get A Litter Tray

Teach your hamster to use a litter pan (toilet). Although the thought of potting training a hamster to use a litter pan might sound incredibly difficult, it's actually quite simple. Use a combination of chinchilla sand (not chinchilla dust) and litter material such as Comfy Pinokio wood pellets or Burgess Excel Bedding & Litter pellets in the pan.

Burgess Bedding & Litter is made from natural straw in compressed pellets, the bedding is 10x more absorbent than whole straw and shavings, and therefore very little is required in litter pan. It naturally locks in odours as the rapid absorbtion stops the breakdown of urea into ammonia, keeping your room smelling fresh and odour free. The litter can be disposed of naturally as compost, mulch, burning, flushing or by simply putting it into your garden bin.

Pay attention to where he normally pees and place the litter pan near the area. Throw some soiled bedding into the litter pan and he'll likely start using the pan to do his peeing business. He probably won't defecate in there.

Diet

Some foods can cause your hamster's urine output to smell worse than it should. If you notice your hamster's cage seems particularly strong-smelling after feeding certain foodstuffs or after you have made a change to his diet, work to determine the cause by eliminating specific items from his menu individually to systematically rule out possibilities. Also, experiment with different grains. Feeding your hamster vitamin supplements can affect the pet's urine odour and colour.

Veterinary Problems

Health problems can cause your hamster's urine to develop an odour that's stronger than it should be. Bladder and kidney infections can cause your hamster's urine to smell bad and be discoloured. If your hamster's urine suddenly takes on a strong odour with no change in your cage hygiene or his diet, take him to the veterinarian immediately to see if a medical cause is behind the smell.