In the wild, small rodents keep busy foraging for food, building and maintaining burrows, and avoiding predation. As pets, they need our help to stay active.
Life in a cage, even a well-furnished one, can be boring for curious, active critters like hamsters, mice, and gerbils. Luckily, small rodents don't require lots of expensive toys to stay entertained. Here's several ways you can keep your little friend stimulated.
- Put Them to Work: Use unshredded newspaper, toilet paper, and cardboard for cage lining instead of paper litter or wood chips. Your rodent will have the busy task of shredding and rearranging the stuff herself each time you clean the cage. These materials are also cheap, safe for your pet, and biodegradable. Chewing and shredding will help your pet keep her teeth worn down.
- Let Them Run: Unless you are able to offer your pet a rodent-proof room to run in every day, a size-appropriate, solid wheel with no spokes is a must for any rodent's cage. For outside-the-cage fun, most pet stores sell rodent "balls" which allow small pets to run around the house safely. A half an hour is more than enough time for your little friend to stay in a ball (less on a warm day.) Always supervise a rodent in a ball, and make sure they can't roll down stairs or into other dangerous situations. Please note that there have been reports of rodents pinching or even breaking toes and legs in the cracks of hamster balls and solid wheels, but many pet owners have used wheels and balls for many years without incident.
- Build a Playground: A clean, large storage bin or any other safely enclosed area is easily converted into a playground, maze, or obstacle course for a pocket pet. Simply add empty cracker boxes, paper towel tubes, plastic balls and chew toys. Small rodents need plenty of out-of-cage time, and this is a much safer, easier-to-clean option than giving them free run of a room.
- Provide Companionship: Though most breeds of hamster are solitary and must be kept alone, gerbils and mice are happiest in same-sex pairs or groups. Introductions are best accomplished when young: take great care when introducing new adults. And, of course, gentle attention and handling from human keepers is also important to the animal's well-being.
- Lose the Food Dish: In the wild, rodents spend a great deal of their time foraging for their food. Let them dig through the cage to find their tidbits. Regular cage cleanings will ensure that no food is left to rot on the cage bottom.
- Offer Healthy Treats: Apart from store-bought hamster or gerbil mix, your rodent should be offered small bites of fresh food. A bit of romaine lettuce or spinach, a raisin, a crumb of cheese (from milk or soy) or a piece of baby carrot are all healthy, welcome treats for small rodents. A fistfull of timothy hay or fresh-cut, pesticide-free grass is a great way to help keep teeth worn down and add fiber to your rodent's diet.
- Give Dust Baths: A small bowl of corn starch or chinchilla dust offered on occasion can help remove excess oil from the fur. Your rodent will roll, dig, and shake in the stuff, having a grand old time! He will probably eat a few mouthfulls if you are using corn starch, so be careful not to let him overdo it.
The copyright of the article Fun for Pocket Pets in Pet Care is owned by Sarah Goodwin-Nguyen. Permission to republish Fun for Pocket Pets in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
 |
 |
 |
Comments
Nov 22, 2008 5:29 PM
Mia Carter :
1 Comment: