Show us your cages 2022

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The Kevin is roughly the same size as the HH but the sides of the base are almost straight so it makes a lot more room, I’m always surprised how much more I can get in there.
I think the shape of the 145L bin makes a difference, it’s squarer so deeper from front to back compared to a standard cage which seems to make more space & a lot easier to set up.
 
This is my set up at the moment and Sweetie is doing good in this new cage even if for 10 days she was literally inside her nest down in her tunnel. Now she is starting being herself again 😊🐹230A1912-9DD1-4400-9CB6-02B73333741D.jpeg
 
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Lorena said:
This is my set up at the moment and Sweetie is doing good in this new cage even if for 10 days she was literally inside her nest down in her tunnel. Now she is starting being herself again 😊🐹
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You have created a wonderful set up for little Sweetie. It is lovely to hear she is back to her usual self. :)
 
Maz said:
Love it. Especially - do not touch hammy's hideout!
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:LOL: yes... that was my daughter's idea one day after we realized how hidden he liked his nest. He experimented with a few places in the last 6 weeks, but for the last 2 weeks he seems to have taken up residence in the peekaboo 2-chamber hideout. He has not been coming above ground much recently (about 2x per night), but we can see him attending to his nest underground several times a day. Now I just have to figure out when/ how to clean it out occasionally without messing with it too much!
 
Has he got a potty tray? Syrians will use one - they can have very good and clean toiletting habits. They will pee in the litter tray and then you just need to empty it once or twice a week (I put Chinchilla sand in it - soaks up the pee). They will use it if you put it in the right place! Or what they decide is the right place. They usually choose a corner of the cage as a toilet so if you put it in that corner they'll use it. If he hasn't got a visible toilet corner at the moment, he may be peeing underground. So I would then just put the litter tray somewhere near the house and he might start using it.

When they're babies and quite young they do sometimes pee in the nest and then yes it has to be cleaned out - but that usually stops them peeing in the nest as they are very precious about their nest and hoard. Once they're a few months old they usually have very neat toileting habits and one place to do it in. The poops aren't much of an issue really - they're like dry seeds and not dirty or smelly (and they can eat them sometimes which is normal) so you can just spot clean some of those out if there get to be quite a few around the place.

At the moment though - as to how long to leave it - rule of thumb is - wait till you can smell something! Then it's a case of feeling around under the substrate to find a damp area and taking the odd handful of damp substrate out and sticking some new in to replace it (which is basically what spot cleaning is).

Life gets much easier when they use a litter tray! The rest of the cage stays clean and dry - although he may pee in his wheel sometimes.
 
Maz said:
Has he got a potty tray? Syrians will use one - they can have very good and clean toiletting habits. They will pee in the litter tray and then you just need to empty it once or twice a week (I put Chinchilla sand in it - soaks up the pee). They will use it if you put it in the right place! Or what they decide is the right place. They usually choose a corner of the cage as a toilet so if you put it in that corner they'll use it. If he hasn't got a visible toilet corner at the moment, he may be peeing underground. So I would then just put the litter tray somewhere near the house and he might start using it.

When they're babies and quite young they do sometimes pee in the nest and then yes it has to be cleaned out - but that usually stops them peeing in the nest as they are very precious about their nest and hoard. Once they're a few months old they usually have very neat toileting habits and one place to do it in. The poops aren't much of an issue really - they're like dry seeds and not dirty or smelly (and they can eat them sometimes which is normal) so you can just spot clean some of those out if there get to be quite a few around the place.

At the moment though - as to how long to leave it - rule of thumb is - wait till you can smell something! Then it's a case of feeling around under the substrate to find a damp area and taking the odd handful of damp substrate out and sticking some new in to replace it (which is basically what spot cleaning is).

Life gets much easier when they use a litter tray! The rest of the cage stays clean and dry - although he may pee in his wheel sometimes.
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I was wondering about potty trays because I'd seen reference to them in some of the other posts in this forum. I hadn't been aware of them before. Should I dig under the substrate to put it down near his nest in the bedding, or just on top near his entrance tunnel? The last time I tried to do a deeper clean I couldn't sense a damp place, but maybe the bedding is just very absorbent? He does sometimes pee in his wheel, but weirdly, he seems to have stopped using the wheel in the past week. I don't know what to make of that yet. He seems to be moving fine around the cage otherwise.
 
On top rather than underground :) I get these corner ones - even if it's not in a corner they seem to have an affinity for peeing in the back corner of it. Our first syrian would pee in the back in the corner, then sit in the front and have a wash :)

See if there's a damp corner of the cage maybe? If not then you could try a corner of the cage and see if he uses it - maybe the corner closest to the house. If that doesn't work try moving it to just outside the house.

There are different brands of these - main thing is check the size is similar. Some are HUGE for rabbits and guinea pigs. This size is just right for a Syrian

 
Maz said:
On top rather than underground :) I get these corner ones - even if it's not in a corner they seem to have an affinity for peeing in the back corner of it. Our first syrian would pee in the back in the corner, then sit in the front and have a wash :)

See if there's a damp corner of the cage maybe? If not then you could try a corner of the cage and see if he uses it - maybe the corner closest to the house. If that doesn't work try moving it to just outside the house.

There are different brands of these - main thing is check the size is similar. Some are HUGE for rabbits and guinea pigs. This size is just right for a Syrian

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Thank you! I am definitely going to try this. With Wally waking up SO LATE still, it's hard to even get a chance to check out his nest. The smell hasn't been an issue so I haven't been too worried, but maybe this will help.
 
So, we went ahead and ordered a 12" silent runner since Wally is so big, even though his back still seemed straight on our 10-inch Bucastate. We have enough room that I think I could temporarily put both wheels in the cage, and I'm thinking that that might be a good way to introduce the new one and see if that is his preference before removing the 10-inch. Any opinions on this idea? This video is him running on his 10-inch a few days ago.

We have a peekaboo tunnel on one side of his cage, but he doesn't appear to use it anymore and has no problem burrowing on his own. So I'm thinking about removing that and adding a platform to support the new wheel until we determine his preference.
 
That's a possibility. Personally I'd just swap the wheel out and keep the old one for playpen time :-) Although I can see it would maybe mean jiggling about a bit with the wheel stand as the silent runner will be taller. I tend to find they just take to a new wheel straight away and seem to love the silent runner.
 
I'll just give that a try then. Even though it's bigger, I think it will still fit in the same place as the old wheel.
 
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