Hi.

Its been a long time since I had a hamster ( actually over 20 years). Ive just bought my daughter her first hamster and shes thrilled with her.

We have got pink palace rota stack cage. The stupid thing dosnt seem to want to sleep in the bed part at the top of the cage and has filled up the tubes with bedding and food.

I know hamsters hoard but is normal for them to fill up the tubes and sleep in them??

Or have we just got a crazy hamster.

In our experience,yes.They;re weird little things.

Ours sleep in their wheels, tunnels, under the water bottles and pretty much anywhere except for the nice hamster houses we provided them with

It's a bit better than the gerbils though who just eat every bed we've ever given them.

The hammies I've had in the past were the same, would never sleep in the proper little bedroom, one of mine used to sleep in the wheel too, and store his food in tubes, behind the wheel (so it wedged and he couldn't use it ... ) He used the bedroom as his toilet though so that was handy in a way, cos it was easy to clean that bit out more often.

i've been lucky the newest ham actually uses her beds but the thwo i had before would regularly sleep in the tubes

if i saw them in there though i'd move their nest once they were up for the night in case they suffocated

Yep mine used to do that - filling the tubes with bedding and food so they couldn't even get through it properly lol

Well the stupid thing is asleep in her food bowl now. I think ive just got a mad hamster.

When I clean my hamsters cage out, I just throw a handful of bedding in at the end, because you can guarantee hes not going to make his bed in the place he's supposed to, so I just chuck it in and let him get on with putting it where he wants to.

Our last hamster did exactly the same! The cage was fitted with tubing on the outside to help him around different levels, but he chose to fill it up with bedding, food etc, so blocking it and defeating the purpose of having tubing. So we took the tubing away and he happily made his bed in his little house.

Mine used to do that.

They do do it but its not healthy for them especially if they are Syrians, as they can contract respirtoray ailments.

Also none of the Rotastak cages are suitable in size for a syrian once its anymore than about 3 or 4 months old.

Well, look at it from the hamster's point of view. How's he meant to know what the human designated 'sleeping area'.

Yeah, that's exactly what I used to do also for the last few I've owned.

With the last one, I just simply placed the bedding in the place where I didn't want him to sleep - worked every time, he'd move it all to the preferred location.

I've got Gerbils now and they'll just sleep wherever I put the bedding down. When presented with a nice clean cage, they're more concerned with playing with their new toys, than setting up their sleeping quarters. When they eventually do retire to sleep, they'll just go and lie amongst the un-made mess of bedding. Lazy sods those 2! haha

Ha, don't they just Little buggers

We had to wait on our syrian hamster growing big enough to use a Rotastak cage. After it escaped twice, we discovered there was an extra wide bar at the top of the cage which was enough for a baby syrian to squeeze through! I wouldn't buy a rotastak again.

personally, i hate rotastaks. and the bubble type cages with mostly plastic tops

rotastaks are small and difficult to clean, the dome ones are easily chewed and escaped from

a good sized classic cage beats them any day in my book.
you can rug up all kinds of things on those bars for hammy to play with and they love to climb them too

easy as pie to clean too.
hammy can kick woodshavings out of the sides though (and pee out of them too! *points to stained wall!* )
but this can be solved by draping something around the back and two sides of the cage, i for example have some nice pink wrapping paper around there.
no more splashes on the walls!

woodshavings, you can get some thin PVC strips and place them onto any extra levels you have in the cage, and hey presto, much less mess on your floor from hammy

I had rotastaks for my hamsters while growing up, but would prefer a more traditional cage with more area to run around in now.

Watch out for hamsters sleeping in tubes - the ventilation is usually poor in them.

Well when i cleaned her out. i just threw the bedding in the cage as suggested. Shes taken a small amount into the tube, but has made a nice cosy bed in the lower layers of the cage.

Hopefully shes realised that sleeping snuggy in the bedding is far more cosy that the tubes.

Mine used to wee up the wall as well.
She used to love climbing and taught herself to "walk" upside down on the roof of her cage, as well as swinging monkey-bars style. Traditional barred cages offer much more "floor space" for adventurous hamsters than plastic cages.

i've never seen mine monkeybar but she's often upside down up there

True, although ours used to gnaw at the bars for long periods during the night...the noise was horrendous!