How to Choose a Hamster Cage: New Trends in Selecting Hamster Cages
- Modeling: The shape of the hamster cage is more focused and ornamental, from the perspective of people rather than from the perspective of the hamster. After all, the cage is placed at home, and it may be a more prominent place, so it should have a certain ornamental value.
- Material: The material of the hamster cage is a plastic panel and mesh wire, etc. Too much plastic plate will affect the permeability of the cage, and too much wire will increase the probability of the hamster biting the cage.
- Accessories: hamsters must have dens, food bowls, running wheels, toilets and drinking fountains, etc., but not all cages are fully equipped. When the accessories are not complete, they need to be purchased separately.
- Details: The details of the hamster cage mainly focus on the craftsmanship of the cage, focusing on the difficulty of disassembling and assembling the cage and the humanized design of the subtleties of the cage.
Choice of Hamster Cage Size
First of all, we should know how to choose the size of the cage.
Hamsters need a certain space for movement. If the cage is too small, the hamster will be mentally abnormal. Hamsters are extremely curious animals. A hamster in the wild can move more than 20km in one night, so trapping it in a small space is like letting people live in a capsule room all day long.
If the hamster thinks that the cage is too small, the spirit will become abnormal. The most common behavior is to bite the cage. Except sleeping, it will bite the cage, and the running wheel will not run, and the cage will squeak in the middle of the night. The hamster is uncomfortable. Not only will a psychotic hamster not make you feel decompressed and happy, but it can also even become a burden in your life. When I first raised mice, the cage I bought was very small. After learning the science of raising mice and changing to a larger hamster enclosure, the symptoms were significantly relieved.
According to the standard of foreign scientific rat raising, a bear must have at least 1 square meter of activity space, which will significantly reduce its irritability, while dwarfs need 0.5 square meters of space. However, considering the domestic breeding environment, many bears even live in 47-base cages of 0.14 square meters, and this standard can only be moderately lowered.
In addition to the size of the area, the height of the hamster cage is also very important, but it is not for you to buy a three- or four-story "villa building", but because the hamster has a hobby of digging holes in addition to running, so the bedding must be spread thick enough.
According to foreign standards, the thickness of the litter should be at least 15cm, giving the hamster sufficient space for drilling, which is equivalent to the height of a pen. However, considering that most of the domestic cages are wire cages, generally only the plastic trays below can be filled with litter. Therefore, the height of the hamster cage must be at least 35CM or more, so as to ensure that there is enough thick padding, and the running wheels of the appropriate diameter can be placed.
Be careful not to buy hamster cages with low heights.
Types of Hamster Cages
At present, hamster cages are roughly divided into the following types: wire cages, acrylic cages, fish tank cages, and wooden cages.
The following is my cage rat matching based on reality: The more popular cage styles on the market are as follows:
This is the easiest cage we can buy, and it is also the most common on the market. The price is also the cheapest, so there is no need to mess around. The ventilation is good, and the running wheel, drinking water bottle, and food basin can be used on the wire. Usually, novices will directly use the wire cage to get started.
Wire Cage
But the wire cage has a disadvantage, that is, the structure is not stable enough. If you place the running wheel on the wire, the running wheel of the bear hamster will make the whole cage creaky, which will affect your sleep at night. In the wire cage, the noise running wheel must be changed.
In addition, because the wire cage is not closed, the bedding is a little higher. When the hamster is in a big hole, it is easy to get the bedding outside the cage. Especially owners bear hamsters like to urinate outside through the cage.
Moreover, the current wire cages on the market are too small, even the largest giant cat cage is only 0.4 square meters of the activity area, strictly speaking, it has not yet reached the living standard of bears.
In fact, the above problems are nothing. The biggest disadvantage of the wire cage is that it affects the viewing experience. You have to pass through the wire to observe the hamster. If you look at it for a while, you will see flowers. So now in addition to the pure wire cage, there is also a comprehensive cage that combines acrylic and wire mesh.
The front panel is made of acrylic material, and the observation comfort is much better than the pure wire cage. The combination of the advantages of the two makes me feel really fragrant, too. The cage I'm currently in service with (see photo below).
However, an acrylic front panel is not cheap, about 70~90 a piece, and the comprehensive price is almost catching up with high-end cage of Alex.
Moreover, there is a problem with the design of the current acrylic front panel. The buckle of the door is very loose. The door will open by itself after a little impact, and then the impact of the panel falling will break the fragile movable hinge. The key is that the price of buying accessories is not cheap. I seriously doubt that the merchants are deliberately making money from the loss of parts.
Acrylic cage
The biggest advantage of this cage is that it is transparent and beautiful, it is very convenient to observe the hamster, and the whole is very beautiful.
But this kind of cage also has problems. Because of the high price, the styles you can buy on the market are too small, and the price of the same area is much more expensive than the wire cage.
In addition, some acrylic cages have problems in the design, and the ventilation and heat dissipation are not very good. In summer, hamsters are easy to get sick from the heat inside.
Therefore, some cages even have holes to install computer fans for ventilation. It is conceivable that acrylic cages How hot will it be in there?
The relatively good DIY basic cage I can find is the Feibao acrylic cage, which is divided into three types: small base, medium base, and large base. Small and medium bases can be used by dwarf hamsters, but they are very expensive, and big bases can barely be used by bears.
However, the biggest problem with the Feibao cage is that the height is not enough. Generally speaking, the thickness of the litter should be at least 15cm. Take Zhongji as an example, if the height of the 30cm removes the height of the litter, can you still put the running wheel? And because a bracket-type running wheel must be used, in addition to the diameter of the running wheel, you have to consider the height of the bracket, and it is even more difficult to put it down. Therefore, Xiaoji and Zhongji can only be used for dwarfs, sacrifice a little padding height, and put a suspended running wheel with a diameter of less than 20CM.
All in all, although this kind of cage is beautiful, it is relatively expensive, and it is really not very practical. It is better to spend a little more money and buy a fish tank.
In fact, if it is for viewing, I still recommend the magic cage such as the acrylic front panel + wire cage.
Fish Tank Cage
In fact, it is to directly buy a fish tank as a cage, which is a last resort in order to achieve the practical area for raising bears.
The advantage is that no matter how big you want to buy a fish tank, you can buy it. The disadvantage is that the bigger the fish tank, the more expensive it is. The super large fish tank that can reach the level of raising bears usually costs seven or eight hundred upwards. If you see a lot of beautifully landscaped hamster cages in the video, they are basically based on fish tanks.
In fact, the fish tank cage also has shortcomings. Firstly, it lacks a top cover. The closed top cover will suffocate the bear. Of course, you can also cut a large skylight out of the top cover, and then fix it with barbed wire for ventilation, but this requires a certain amount of magic modification ability.
Secondly, the fish tank is not a standard hamster cage, the walls are all glass, and facilities such as kettle running wheels must be used with brackets and placed inside the cage. In fact, the bracket running wheel has disadvantages.
It is not firmly placed on the bedding material. It is easy to fall down and buckle the bear in the middle of the running. I used it once and never used it again. And if you encounter a bear who likes to chew on things, the running wheel of the stand will be gnawed in a few days.
In fact, it is not insurmountable. Use a wooden fence to enclose a canyon to release the running wheel and fix the running wheel to the bottom of the fish tank. Prepare more teeth-grinding tools for the bear. As long as the space is large enough, it will not be idle. Nothing to do to bite the running wheel.
Like the acrylic cage, the fish tank cage is highly permeable and easy to observe, but unless the top cover is abandoned, the airflow is also relatively poor.
All in all, the fish tank cage is really good, with some minor shortcomings but they are acceptable. It is definitely the best choice for high-end bear breeders, but at the same time, it is also the most expensive of all cages. In addition, if you have cats at home like me, it is not suitable to use fish tank cages.
Because the area of the cages sold on the market is too small to meet the needs of raising bears, in order to get a larger cage, hamster lovers have really thought of a lot of tricks, and the magic modification of the box is one of them that saves money. route.
The front panel is usually made of acrylic material for easy observation. The sides and top are closed with wire mesh, which not only facilitates air circulation but also facilitates hanging running wheel water bottles and other items.
Wooden Hamster Cages
A wooden hamster cage is a great way to give your hamster a comfortable place to live. There are many benefits to using a wooden cage, including the fact that it is easy to clean and provides plenty of ventilation. Wooden cages are also very sturdy, so you don't have to worry about your hamster escaping.
If you are looking for a cage that will last a long time and provide your hamster with a safe and comfortable home, a wooden cage is a great option.