# 1 cm bar spacing OK for Chinese Hamsters..



## Eve1972 (Apr 5, 2011)

THis weekend we became the proud owners of two Chinese hamsters. The cage we bought looks like this..

Hamster Cage, S2809 Products Offered By Qiheng Pet Products Manufactory Co.,ltd. China

Except ours has solid floor levels and no ladders. Anyways, the bar spacing in 1 cm and I am curious if that is going to pose a problem with our hamsters escaping. Thanks in advance for the help! :001_smile:


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## thedogsmother (Aug 28, 2008)

Welcome to the forum, I would love to see piccies of your little newbies when you have a moment. I think you probably have the westminster cage then, 1cm is the widest that is reccomended for mice so I doubt chinese hams would have a problem with it but if watch them carefully, if they can get their heads through the bars they will probably be able to get the rest of themselves out too. If they can escape it isnt the end of the world, you can easily mesh cages, Ive done quite a few of them. its a pain to have to do but if youre at all worried about them escaping it might be worth it.


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## Sarah+Hammies (Jul 20, 2009)

Hi, to be honest my chinese ham is a right little escape artist! I wouldnt put him in a barred cage! I cant even put him in one of those playpens without him escaping! : I had him out yesterday i was sat on the floor with my feet up against the wall and he was climbing over my hands and over my legs, i put him on the floor between my legs and he escaped under my knee there was the teeniest tinyest smallest gap between the back of my knee and the floor and he found it in seconds!!! 

Dont under estimate chinese hammies :lol: :laugh:


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

unfortunatly that cage is not suitable to house multiple chinese hamsters in, not because of the bar spacing, but because chinese are very teritorial and if you are going to try house them in the same cage you need to have a large single level cage, such as a ZZ with a meshed over lid, 2 wheels, 2 water bottles, 2 houses and you are best scatter feeding

you will also need to keep a second cage spare encase a fight breaks out and they need to be split 

i myself keep my single chinese in a barred cage no problems, they were a pair but fell out and effectivly self neutered yang, and they had to be split, ying has since crossed the bridge


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## Lady Sol (Aug 20, 2009)

I wouldn't trust a chinese in a barred cage. They can squash a lot thinner than the other hamster breeds. I ended up buying a Rotacrap just for my disabled chinese hamster to have more space to run around.

Doesn't mean they'd automatically escape from a barred cage, some of my hamsters can get out their cages if they really want to, they choose not to though (apart from Smokey ).


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## sunshine80 (Jan 25, 2010)

Lil Miss said:


> unfortunatly that cage is not suitable to house multiple chinese hamsters in, not because of the bar spacing, but because chinese are very teritorial and if you are going to try house them in the same cage you need to have a large single level cage, such as a ZZ with a meshed over lid, 2 wheels, 2 water bottles, 2 houses and you are best scatter feeding
> 
> you will also need to keep a second cage spare encase a fight breaks out and they need to be split
> 
> i myself keep my single chinese in a barred cage no problems, they were a pair but fell out and effectivly self neutered yang, and they had to be split, ying has since crossed the bridge


Agree with the above. I had two male chinese hamsters (also called Ying and Yang ) and they had to be seperated because of fighting. When I got them I was told that this may happen and they woul dnot even sell two females together as they said they would definately fight. They lived out their days in a divided glass tank and were quite happy one of them also stayed in a cage for a while though (when they had to get seperated) and he was fine in it and did not escape - unlike one of my mice who was a proper little escape artist. One thing that amused me though as they both got on OK with my male mouse (never in the same cage obviously) and would come out and have a play time/run around with him but would fight with each other - guess they knew he was a mouse and not a hamster they did not like it when he tried to clean them though :smile:.


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