Guest viewing is limited

New Hamster lots of Poop on wheel

madz

New member
Member
Messages
1
Reaction score
1
Points
1
Hi. I just reused a hamster named Humphrey and upgraded his cage to a 29-gallon fish tank. He is some sort of dwarf hamster and is still young. He has been pooping an awful lot on his wheel, and I was wondering if that is normal? He has been seen by a vet and is healthy, and this is just very puzzling to me. I am still trying to tame him and build trust, also. This is my first hamster, so any tips in general would be greatly appreciated.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maz
Congratulations on adopting Humphrey. He has a lovely name 🐹 What are you feeding him? Healthy poops are small and dry. Are they neat and hard, like seeds? Do you have some photos of Humphrey and his cage set up? Then we can give you ideas about it. I'm sure Humphrey is very cute ❤🐾
 
  • Like
Reactions: Maz
Hello and welcome :-) Assume you meant rehomed! 😂 Anyway. It's great you have got Humphrey and yes young hamsters can poop a lot when they're frightened or a bit stressed for example. Or in their wheel anyway because they like it so much and don't want to get off it so just poop anyway.

I take it the poops are like normal little black things and not diarrhoea?

He must have been in a very tiny cage if you upgraded him to a 29 gallon tank, and that sounds a good thing - the only thing is - even a 29 gallon tank is incredibly small for a hamster. Dwarf hamsters actually need the same amount of space as syrians as they are just as active. Some even more active,

A 40 gallon breeder tank is about the minimum size you'd want really - that is about 36" long by 18" deep by 18" tall. Although even bigger than that is good too! You can buy quite a few 40 inch enclosures these days, but they tend to be a bit expensive. You can also make bin cages out of 200 quart bins which are inexpensive (if you don't mind doing a little bit of diy and meshing the lid.

Anyway 29 gallons sounds like an improvement for him for now! And yes it would be great to see his set up as we might be able to suggest adding the odd thing or tweaking the odd thing so he feels settled. The main thing is plenty of depth of bedding - at least 6" and ideally 8 to 10" deep (this doesn't need changing weekly or cleaning out weekly - when it's that deep you just "spot clean" the pee and can keep doing that for 2 or 3 months before needing to change substrate). Hamsters can get very stressed by big cleanouts. Which might be another reason for suddenly pooping more (ie a cage change is stressful for them, just because it's change - and a big clean out can be stressful for them - if nothing smells familiar and everything is replaced or new.

"Partial" cleans are better - as and when needed and not everything at the same time :-) There's a whole article about it on the home page if you're interested :-)
 
Back
Top