# Chewing



## Bubble19852000 (Aug 11, 2020)

Hi i hope someone can help, we bought a syrian hamster from pets at home 3 weeks ago so she will now be about 11 weeks but she will not stop chewing the bars on her cage. She has endless stuff to chew on to get her teeth down but shes not interested. She has a large cage with tubes, a wheel, a wooden tunnel, cardboard tubes and 3 specific nawing blocks so surely she cant be bored. Any advice would be appreciated. As you can see from the picture she chews the bars right next to where the block is that shes got to chew on!!


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## Engel98 (Oct 7, 2018)

Congrats on your little furry pal.

Bar chewing is normally a behaviour seen in small cages... unfortunately yours isn't a large cage. It's tiny and not recommended.

80x50cm cage is the minimum for a hamster. You want one that's long rather than tall as hamsters are ground dwellers and suck at climbing.

I suggest an upgrade. I recommend this:
https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/smal...QYE9d3dA0yurgVsIap818_q45n8EG2sRoCcy0QAvD_BwE

Both of my hamsters are in cages bigger than that and it makes a huge difference to the hamsters well-being. Roughly these little guys can travel 5 miles...a night! Not all of that can be done on a wheel. Imagine wanting to go somewhere but only able to use a treadmill. Pretty boring isn't it.

Speaking of wheels, Syrians need an 11 inch (28cm) wheel. Their backs arch on a small wheel which can cause a lot of pain. You can't put a proper wheel in that cage. Here's the wheel I use: 
https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/smal..._aDXMX8tFOYlixu_AkywtB3HJjaF5Q6RoCUkYQAvD_BwE

One last thing. Hamsters burrow. I think I read in the wild their burrows can be as deep as 3 metres. Now we can't do that so 6-10 inches of deep bedding is advised.

Everything we put in the cage is to mimic their habitat in the wild. This inturn encourages natural behaviour and is enjoyable for your hamster. I also suggest scatter feeding the food to encourage foraging.

Please also reconsider your current substrate. Pine isnt advised because it contains phenols which irritate the respiratory system and make them ill. If you insist on using pine please make sure it's dust extracted and kiln dried. I recommend bedmax or little max. Big bales and very cheap. It's a horse bedding.

Another option is hemp. Aubiose is also a horse bedding and safe for hamsters. Not very good for tunnels though so maybe mix it in with layers of orchard grass or another soft hay.

Best bedding is paper. Fitch, carefresh and kaytee are often recommended. Soft, absorbent and gentle on the resp system.

Maybe buy some sand and put it in a tray for digging and cleaning. It may also be used as a litter box 

Hopefully this solves your problem.


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## Bubble19852000 (Aug 11, 2020)

I joined a forum on facebook and they advised on the cage, bedding, wheel etc so now Snowball has been in her new home for 2 nights and i havent heard her chew once!! She also had a sand bath tonight but wasnt really interested, will try her again in a few days. Thanks for the reply. You trust pets at home when your a new pet owner, clearly i wouldnt now.


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## Engel98 (Oct 7, 2018)

Bubble19852000 said:


> I joined a forum on facebook and they advised on the cage, bedding, wheel etc so now Snowball has been in her new home for 2 nights and i havent heard her chew once!! She also had a sand bath tonight but wasnt really interested, will try her again in a few days. Thanks for the reply. You trust pets at home when your a new pet owner, clearly i wouldnt now.


Aww I'm glad she's happier.

I leave the sand bath in 24/7 . Have you got a tea strainer or something to sieve out any clumped sand and poo?

I'd add some more bedding on the side of the age without the wheel. An amazing upgrade you should be proud 

[email protected] employees are hand out wrong and out of date advice but also have one job really, to sell you a product.

Any other questions please feel free to ask. We all start somewhere!


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## -Lily- (Aug 3, 2020)

I personally think that all pine and cedar shavings are unsafe - I wouldn’t want to risk it. Even if they are dust extracted, they are usually still pretty dusty. Also, kiln-drying has been known to only take out the water content, not the phenols. I know that there is still some debate over this, but it is always better safe than sorry with hamsters. ;


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## Knighterist (Feb 10, 2020)

-Lily- said:


> I personally think that all pine and cedar shavings are unsafe - I wouldn't want to risk it. Even if they are dust extracted, they are usually still pretty dusty. Also, kiln-drying has been known to only take out the water content, not the phenols. I know that there is still some debate over this, but it is always better safe than sorry with hamsters. ;


My hamster had itchy scratchies very often when I gave him the [email protected] bedding think he was in there when I got him so he should be used to it. I took him to vets and they said try paper based bedding. I did that and he definitely loves it. The problem with paper is sometimes I have paper dust (? Is that a thing?), as in the paper breaks down from hamster frolicking in it and theres a bit of dust. Don't get me wrong, hamster loves his soft paper bedding which holds his tunnels very well (he's all about premium comfort )
I recently tried out hemp bedding and it's really good since it's drier and it doesn't break down to the paper dust. It also gives the hamster a bit of different texture to play with too. I use a mixture of two so he still gets to sleep in the comfort of paper bedding, but he can dig at hemp (I think he likes it...He tried to chew at it initially too).

I have also bought the hammocks off Zooplus to put at the places where he used to chew and he hasn't been chewing much since. It's not fixing the problem, but as a preventive measure and it helps keep the bedding in.


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