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For this reason, we suggest taking part in a toy rotation – add a few enrichment activities into your hamster’s enclosure for a month or so, and then take them out and replace them with something else.
i) Scatter feeding, that is sprinkling their dry food around on the substrate rather than feeding from a bowl. This is clearly much more enriching as they're using their brains, and much healthier as you're encouraging movement. Hamsters have excellent noses and their whiskers help them find food too. It gets them used to engaging with the substrate with a clear reward. Once they are happy to hoover around on the surface you can level up the difficulty by deliberately putting the food deep into the substrate/ mixing it up after sprinkling.The idea is to enrich your hamster’s senses by offering a variety of materials in which he can dig. It should be a shallow container that is separate from your hamster’s traditional bedding – either inside of the enclosure itself or outside of it and used for supervised play. Substrate is the bedding material we put in the base of the cage for our pets to live on and dig in. For many common pet rodents like mice, rats and guinea pigs, the main thing we have to think about is absorbency of urine. However, in the wild, hamsters are adapted to live in dry, desert areas which means their bodies use water very efficiently; they don’t make a lot of pee, and their poos are dry pellets. I fully agree with @Engel98. It is absolutely something to worry about and take active steps into correcting if your hamster doesn't burrow. It's a key natural behaviour and an absence of such is a big red flag. And on the positive side, it's an incredibly easy way to add high value enrichment to their life. We want substances that will allow enormous igloo/volcano nests to be constructed. That means long strips of bedding rather than short/heavily chopped up fragments. Beri likes using long newspaper strips, hay, and safebed for hamsters. Another good option is toilet paper.
Choosing an appropriate container is crucial to ensure your hamster’s comfort and safety while digging. Opt for a shallow plastic bin or a glass terrarium with low walls to prevent your hamster from escaping. Make sure the container is spacious enough for your hamster to move around comfortably. A minimum of 12 inches by 8 inches is recommended, but the larger, the better. Ensure that the container is escape-proof and free of any sharp edges or protruding objects that could harm your hamster.Provide a deeper digging box in the cage, similar to a rat digging box, but with hamster appropriate depth and substrate. If you have a healthy budget and you would like to go all-out for your pet, you can certainly do that by providing a village of tunnels, spacious enclosures, and a variety of toys and climbing structures. Whichever end of the spectrum you fall on, your hamster will appreciate the enrichment for both his physical and mental health. They are old and/or unwell. An unwell animal isn't going to waste energy doing something they don't have to do to survive. If your hamster has never been witnessed digging/ burrowing then this is unlikely to be the cause. But if an individual who previously has displayed a range of natural behaviours stops doing so, it can be an early symptom of needing the vets. If you’re looking for a way to save money on hamster bedding, hemp bedding is a cost-effective option to consider. However, this type of bedding doesn’t hold burrows on its own. To get around this, you’ll need to mix it with other bedding materials like paper bedding and hay.
If a hamster is burrowed and isn’t responding to stimuli, uncover it and hold a mirror before its nose. If fog appears on this mirror, the hamster is breathing and thus hibernating.
A large, usable floor area with plenty of space for exploring - there isn’t a lot of evidence to say exactly how big a hamster cage should be but the ‘Veterinary Association for Animal Welfare’(based in Germany) states a minimum cage size of 100x50cm ii) Burying or partially burying cardboard boxes and tubes. This helps get them started with experiencing being under the substrate, as well as being cheap (free!) and easy for humans. Hamster enrichment does not need to be elaborate or expensive. In fact, it will cost you nothing at all to take your hamster outside for some play time and/or bring some items from nature into his enclosure. It’s really important to give your hamster a deep (approx. 25cm/10 inches) layer of bedding so they can burrow like they would in the wild. They use the burrow for sleeping, hiding and storing food so it’s important to use a bedding that will hold its structure when tunnelled into. Examples of safe bedding include: Essentially, burrowing for wild hamsters is to negotiate terrain without rising to the surface. This helps hamsters avoid predator detection, including birds of prey, snakes, and desert mammals.
Biology Letters confirms that captive hamsters, especially Syrians, are invariably nocturnal, which will be reflected in their behavior.
The right cage for your hamster
How much bedding you use will also depend on the height and width of your enclosure. If you have a tank that stands at sixteen inches tall, for instance, filling any portion of the tank (even with a partition) with ten inches of bedding doesn’t leave you a lot of space between the top of the enclosure and the mound of bedding. It may also make it difficult for the hamster to access. Add bedding or other burrowing material, whichever you choose and is safe for your pet. Some hamster owners like to use the (unscented) tissues that came in the tissue boxes in the first place. Hamsters are extremely short-sighted, so negotiating the world underground is no more challenging than it would be on the surface. Wild hamsters rely on their senses of smell, touch, and hearing. Burrowing in Pet Hamsters You shouldnt be getting another hamster if you can't even afford bedding. What happens if any of your current animals need vet attention? Are you going to deny them of any medical help? How will you afford that?
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