Hi everyone ☺️

[lennytheham]

Hi, I’ve had hamsters since I was 10 years old in 2010 so I am quite shocked that I’ve not joined this forum before this week, but happy to be here!

I just got Lenny on Wednesday after a 4-year break from having a hamster and a 2-year break from owning other rodents.

Lenny is a winter white dwarf hamster and I’m not quite sure of the gender yet, but everyone seems to be guessing boy

Lenny is my 11th rodent, 8th hamster and 5th winter white.

The 4 winter white’s before Lenny I’ve had are: Robin (boy), Rosalie (girl), Ollie (boy) and Sterling (boy). They are my absolute favourite hamster species and in general pet to own

I’ve also had two syrian hamsters: Waverly (girl) and Gilbert (boy)

Then had one roborovski: Annie (girl) and 3 mice: Love, Noelle and Pixie (all girls)

Lenny has already proven to be a curious and chill dude, he loves to sleep but when he’s awake he excitedly runs to my hand and is super fine with being held and getting out of his cage.

Lenny lives in a Ferplast Maxi Duna (99 cm / 39 in × 52 cm / 20.3 in). My current problem has been finding suitable bedding. Paper-based bedding is basically nonexistent here. I managed to get one pack of it and ordered several more from other countries, but they haven’t arrived yet (should hopefully be here next week).

Right now, one side of his cage has (safe) wood bedding, but he doesn’t really care for it because it doesn’t hold burrows well.

Other than that I am super excited to be back to having a hamster at home and hope to read more posts from others!

Here are some pictures of Lenny

 

[lennytheham]

And here are the hamster’s I’ve had before from first to Lenny

 

[Socks' Mum]

Lovely photos!

 

[Maz]

Ooh lovely to see so many hamster photos Lenny is adorable (they all were). Whereabouts are you where you can't get paper bedding easily please? We might have some tips!

You'll already know plenty about hamsters if you've had that many, and other rodents Although their individual personalities can always surprise us!

 

[lennytheham]

Lovely photos!

Thank you!

 

[lennytheham]

Ooh lovely to see so many hamster photos Lenny is adorable (they all were). Whereabouts are you where you can't get paper bedding easily please? We might have some tips!

You'll already know plenty about hamsters if you've had that many, and other rodents Although their individual personalities can always surprise us!

I am in Estonia, used to live in Finland, was much easier to find some there! They actually did have some in Estonia as well when I had my last hamster but it seems to have disappeared… I’ve seen other people stress about it in local Facebook hamster groups as well There’s only Chipsi’s one but it’s such a small pack and often unavailable as well or only through online orders…

 

[Maz]

Do you mean the Chipsi wood shavings or do they do a paper one that is the small pack? Have you looked at Rat Rations? They sell all kinds of bedding and will also ship abroad to various countries. Whether that will be cost effective or not I'm not sure. To check the postage cost you'd need to put some bedding in the basket, and go part way through the checkout process, adding your country.

Although actually, now I look, I don't think their paper bedding is very large bags - it says 250g which is probably only 1 to 2 lires, so that's not much help. They used to sell large bags of teabag bedding. They also sell large bales of Green mile cardboard substrate - which is supposed to be quite good, but not really for holding tunnels - some people mix something like the cardboard bedding with paper bedding to help hold tunnels.

However, the do sell a bulk bag of Megazorb And that is supposed to be good for holding tunnels. It's a kind of cellulose bedding. So paper related. Carefresh is also cellulose.

Megazorb - Bulk Sack

 

[lennytheham]

Do you mean the Chipsi wood shavings or do they do a paper one that is the small pack? Have you looked at Rat Rations? They sell all kinds of bedding and will also ship abroad to various countries. Whether that will be cost effective or not I'm not sure. To check the postage cost you'd need to put some bedding in the basket, and go part way through the checkout process, adding your country.

Although actually, now I look, I don't think their paper bedding is very large bags - it says 250g which is probably only 1 to 2 lires, so that's not much help. They used to sell large bags of teabag bedding. They also sell large bales of Green mile cardboard substrate - which is supposed to be quite good, but not really for holding tunnels - some people mix something like the cardboard bedding with paper bedding to help hold tunnels.

However, the do sell a bulk bag of Megazorb And that is supposed to be good for holding tunnels. It's a kind of cellulose bedding. So paper related. Carefresh is also cellulose.

Megazorb - Bulk Sack

Thank you so much for listing products I can look into! Rat Rations does not ship to Estonia sadly, it has the option but when you click it, it says to contact them but I’m assuming it’d be cheaper to get the bedding from Finland or Germany even. I’ll definitely keep looking into it! And here’s the Chipsi bag he has in half of his cage currently: https://www.chipsi.eu/products/chipsi-carefresh-original/ but sadly we only have the smaller one available to order here. I’m going to Finland next weekend, I’ll definitely see what I can find there! He’ll defo get his bedding, whatever it costs! And I luckily have two bags of Chipsi on the way as well

 

[Maz]

Ok so if you have a paper shredder you could shred kitchen paper rolls to make paper bedding . It could take a while to make enough though and kitchen rolls aren’t that cheap either!