bad habbit HAMSTER..... HELP PLEASE

[Prairie*Dog*Lover]

Hello all,

Ok my new ham ham has a bad habbit.... She pees in her tunnels and it makes a mess.... she gets all covered in it and i keep haveing to clean her tubes at least 5 times a day....... Is there a way for me to get her to stop peeing in the tubes???? And also she wont leave the tubes.. she brings her food and everything in there... She even sleeps in there.... she has 2 run wheels and lots of things to do but seems not intrested in them.. Is that normal for a new ham not to come out? She likes to come out to see me but wont other than that... And she only comes out if I am lucky.......
But she cant keep peeing in there it is grose.... How do i break the habbit????
Thanks a bunch ........

[Karen]

How long have you had her? Is she the only one in her cage? Is it easy to just leave her in there without the tube at all, so she gets used to the space, and chooses a different "toilet area?" Has she been checked by the vet to make sure she doesn't have some sort of infection that makes her need to pee more often?

[Uabassoon]

I'm not too experienced with hamsters but I wonder if you could litter train him. We have a litter box in my rats cage and they always use, sometimes they'll go on their little platforms in the cage. But it's gotten so much better since I put the litterbox in there.

[LuvGold00]

I've actually seen Hamster litter boxes at Petco... Not sure if they actually work.

[tikeyas_mom]

hamsters love to urinate while running in their wheel, eating their foods, and going through their tunnels.. it is very icky i know lol. is your hamster female?? i have found female hamsters do this more so then males. males tend to pick on corner of the cage and urinate there.

you will just have to keep cleaning it, it is just the way hamsters are...

[DejaVu]

Indeed, hamsters can be litter trained. You buy a hamster potty and some chinchilla sand (not dust, dust is bad) and place some of the peed on bedding in the litter box, and it is as easy as that.... most of the time. For time being, I would recommend you remove the tunnels to get her used to the potty. I must ask, is this a dwarf or syrian? Dwarfs are normally the ones that pee on everything, though there are excpetions. How long have you had this hamster? How old is it?

I have not seen that females pee moreon things than males. I have had more females than males, and have yet to see that.

[jackie]

my hamster is exactly the same, he loves his little tunnels. and makes huge nests inside the tubes.

i usually just let him get on with it. and just give the tubes a good cleaning every 4 or 5 days. he just got too stressed when i was cleaning the pipe out daily

[tikeyas_mom]

Originally posted by DejaVu

I have not seen that females pee moreon things than males. I have had more females than males, and have yet to see that.

i have had as much female hamsters as males and from experience i found that females tend to pee kind of everywhere in the cage, or in several spots... while males tend to pee more in one specific place... that is usually where i would place the litter box.. thanks for the concern though

[DejaVu]

It is not a known fact though. It also depends on species. Dwarfs I have noticed tend to pee more than syrians from what I have seen.

[tikeyas_mom]

i believe the reason dwarf pee so often is because their systems are so small, and they drink alot and it basically goes right throgh them... the amout of water intake can vary also depending if the hamster is a campbell dwarf and has diabeties... that is very common in campbell dwarfs... which you probably know.

[DejaVu]

Indeed I do know. It is a shame that the diabetes has become so common in the campells, and even now in the the campbells/winter white hyrids, because some people are careless or stupid enough to let them mate. I think I had one possible diabetic several years ago, but I wasn't really to sure, because everything was fine until she began getting older. (around 1. 1/2)