Yet another Peanut enquiry!

We have converted the old cage of Izzy's that had the really small shelves by putting in wooden ones all the way across like in Izzy's new cage & so Peanut has 3 floors of space, plenty of toys, 2 wheels, sand bath etc. However, she is constantly gnawing on the bars & seems desperate to get out, if she hears you nearby she goes....well, nuts! If she 'plays' with anything it just seems to be destructive behaviour, she chews things to bits, again, in an almost desperate way. She spends quite a bit of time out of the cage because of this, either in her ball or in the bin cage playbox we made for our last hamster. She loves her ball & it is almost impossible to get her out into your hand, but she is more willing if you put the ball on the ground or into the playbox. She seems much happier in the playbox, she has toys, tubes, a wheel & cardboard box house where she'll go for a snooze, she settles really quickly in there & seems calmer. Now do you think it just seems she is happier in the box as we're not seeing/hearing her gnaw on bars & because she is only in there for short periods so it's somewhere different? She doesn't run around like a mad hatter or climb the walls trying to get out, she's quite quiet & spends less time in the wheel. Do you think she is genuinely happier being in a box not a cage?!  
As an example, this morning she was gnawing so I got her out, she sat on my lap while we had breakfast, alternately trying to chew my dressing gown & munching on some of hubby's cereal, then after 10mins or so I put her in the box, she had a little munch on the treat stick in there, a little wander & then went into the house. Now if I'd put her back in her cage instead, she would probably have climbed the bars & started gnawing again.
I'll post photos of the cages in a minute when I find them!

The new cage


The playbox. This is how it was originally, it's contents are all different, there's no sandbox & different toys etc & there is no cat in it!!

prehaps she feels safer in the bin cage, normally i am completley the opposite in opinion having changed all 7/8 of my tanks and bins for cages but if she acts calmer in the bin i would keep her in there for a week and see if she reacts differently to her wire one after that time.

I have to say i love your floors, they are brilliant

I wondered about her feeling safer in the bin, she's got worse with gnawing as the cages have got bigger, maybe there's too much space for her?! We were talking just now about keeping her in the bin for a few days, she's still in there from this morning having gone to sleep & not woken up yet, & that's with the bin being on the floor in the lounge, dogs wandering around & us, usually she'd be awake & gnawing frantically! Maybe we'll try it & see how she goes, I'll keep it downstairs over the week-end so I can keep an eye on her & move it upstairs next week to see if location makes difference.

Hamster cage floors or floorboards?! LOL Hubby is responsible for both so I'll pass the compliment on. Unfortunately that was our old house, a lovely Victorian with original features, this one's a cottage with concrete floors so we have carpets.  

Both are lovley but the cage floors are what i was refering to   what wood are the made from?

I always liked solid wood floors in houses, my house is carpeted and the cats love to destroy it in various ways lol

Both the bin and the wire cage are great setups. I think the hamsters prefer bins, but it may be a matter of individual taste. My bins have no lids and the hamsters can get out if they really want too, but they don't. They get out if they need something from me. Maybe they don't like the sight of bars.

One thing about the bin cages, they are easier to keep clean. I can get them cleaner than the wire cages and it takes less time.

I am interested to hear if your hamster really prefers the bin cage to the wire cage.

I really like the wire cage set-up it looks very nice.  I guess you will have to see which one she likes better

The cage floors are just plywood & hubby copied the 'design' from the floors in Izzy's cage.

One of our cats used to love to scratch the carpet at the top of the stairs in the other house but nor here, probably because the carpets here aren't new!!

We have a lid for the playbox, mostly to keep the other animals out! But it has plenty of airholes & fastens securely so that's ok. It had crossed my mind it would be easier to keep the playbox clean than the cage!  

We thought the wire cage was great too, just seems that Peanut doesn't!!

I'll keep you informed on how she gets on in the bin cage but she slept all day which hasn't happened for a long time. She woke about 8ish & was out for about 1.5hrs & since going back in has had a good look round as I'd put some of her stuff in while she was out, & she's been in her wheel, but no manic charging around......yet!!

Great cages, we prefer wire cages for Syrians and bin cages for our dwarfs.

Well it's been a few days & I can say for certain that Peanut prefers her bin cage!  
She is rarely up during the day & even in the evenings she usually justs goes for a quick spin in the wheel & then back to bed, so we have to be quick if we want to get her out! If she is up & about then she isn't tearing around like a demented hamster but is much more calm & relaxed & even if you are stood there with the lid off, she tends to just look at you, in the wire cage if she saw or heard you she'd be straight to the bars clamouring to get out! And we have also found that she isn't emptying her food bowl & storing it all but just taking a little each time instead, I'm guessing she feels it is safe to leave the food there & nothing else will eat it! She also seems to have stopped biting, but that could just be  because we haven't had her out so much so she doesn't get so many opportunities!
I feel guilty for not having thought to try her in the bin cage before but I just assumed her gnawing & mad behaviour was because she was a nutty little thing & just wanted to come out & explore. All the time & money to give her a bigger & bigger cage & all she wanted was a cheap plastic bin!  
It's really strange being in my office now & not seeing or hearing her trying to gnaw her way through the bars, peace at last!
I guess now we can't call her Nuts for short anymore!!  

It is odd, but they really do prefer the bins. I think the wire cages seem to open and they feel too vulnerable. I think in the wild they den underground in little holes and spaces. A bin must feel a bit like that, but the wire is all nice and open and of course exposed.
The bins are easier to clean. I can clean a whole row of bin cages in the time it takes to clean one wire cage. And as you say, they are cheaper. Smart of Peanut to know that she needed a different type of housing.

My guinea pigs don't like bars either. The front of their enclosure is only 6 in high, but they are content to stay put. When I had wire because they were in a cage, they fussed a lot.

I have to say all my hamsters prefer wire cages (plus they are extreemly easy to clean  ). I can buy a bigger and more sutible wire cage than i could ever have a bin. I had them all in tanks and bins and would never have moved them over if they were unhappy in there.

I think it is fair to say different hamsters prefer different types of housing, but to say that all would prefer a bin is untrue.

You can easily make a wire cage 'burrowable', none of my hamsters feel vunerable in their cages (exhibited daily by their sleeping places lol)

Hi everyone, long time no chat  

We just added a bin cage to Sid's wire/plastic cage.  A while ago Molldoll mentioned that the cage we had was too small for a syrian.  My son did not want to give up her cage so we gave her an addition (and after what I spent on it, I hated to give it up too )

Her original cage now sits on top of a bin and there is a tube running from her original cage to the bin.  My husband also cut out panels on each side of the bin and replaced them with hardware cloth so that there would be enough ventilation.  She seems quite happy with the new addition and likes to go down there and climb on the wire and wander around.  We also now have room to leave her "bathtub" (sand dish) in there too.  When I have a chance I'll put on a picture.  

Sounds exellent Sahmof3n3   more space is always better

Thanks molldoll!

I must say, like Debbie, I've noticed a significant drop in the chewing on the wires of her original cage.  

Ive not had the bar chewing problem, i did experiance it with both my syrians before moving them to 4ft cages - but after that they have all been as good as gold (prehaps im lucks with that though)  

It seems that hamsters like people have different tastes in "housing". I admit that some of mine prefer one type of cage to another. Also some like to live alone and some like company. There is no acounting for taste.

I just dropped by and i thought that maybe it could depend on what theyre more used to since a baby. When i bought two of my dwarfies from a pet shop that had hamsters housed in tanks, they were constantly chewing on the bars. I think they figured that the metal was going to outrun their teeth so stopped that