Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been doing some research on caging requirements of dwarf hamsters, and have tried to identifiy the pros and cons to each cage type.

METAL CAGES:

-Good ventilation
-Durable

-Hams can kick stuff out of them
-Easier for dwarfs to excape from than glass

GLASS/PLASTICTANKS:

-Gives you the best view of animal:
-Cheapest to buy
-Nothing for the hamster to chew up
-Hardest to excape from

-Less ventilation
-Big glass tanks are hard to handle and clean. I mean, just try lugging a big twenty long into the laundry room once week. Sooner or later, you'll have problems in the form of a hurt back or a shattered hamster home (and cut up hands perhaps). If I use glass, I plan to stick to ten gallons.

HABITRAILS:

-Enrichens the hamsters' environment
-Gives a good view of the animals

-Less ventilation than metal cage
-Dwarf hamsters have trouble moving through them depending on the design.
-Most likely to be excaped from (in my opinion).

I use a habitrail space station set up..not too elaborate yet, but thats most likely to change... I've had the teddy bear hamster in it for at least 2 months now, and I'm curious as to how you figure that its easy to escape from? Unless you're a bit on the silly side and leave a hole unplugged, or leave the door open...I can't see how they would escape really..the bars on it are by far no where nears wide enough for a hamster to crawl through.

I must agree I have about 6 of my Syrians in a Habitrail Safari unit and not oe of them has escaped the only problems I've had is taking apart the ones with lots of addons for cleaning but I dont mind it if they are happy in it. The only downside I have noticed if the lack of ventilation in the addons scoobs likes to build his nest in the outpost and nap in the tower in the day and kevin seems to like climbing all over hers and running through the tubes and peeing in the maze!! I do recomend the habitrail's tho. I had a rotastak once and I had 2 Hamsters escape from it. Mainly due to faulty clips and stupid connecting tubes. Never again! and as for a cage I cant fault them either I have a couple of mine in 2 level cages and they love it good ventilation the only thing is the chewing the hamsters I have in the wire cages chew them more than the habitrail ones. and are kept in the spare room with the wooden floor due to the mess they make. The female hamsters I am breeding currently are in tanks mainly for security and so my little nephew cant poke his fingers in and disturb them. Scooby has been in all 3 of these types and seems to like the habitrail best.