Most wire cages are inadequate for Campbells dwarves for one or more reasons. I prefer 10 gallon aquariums. The aquariums can be purchased here for 10 dollars, much cheeper than cages. These fish tanks are draft proof, escape resistant, and large enough to provide exercise room. I do keep 4 small wire transport cages on hand for emergencies.

Be certain to get lids to your aquariums cages. There are a couple of different types; either one will do. The point here in to keep cats and other wild rodents out. I have had mice in my food and in my cages in the past. Believe me, you don’t want the diseases these critters can bring anywhere near your hamster stock.

That leads me to another point; I buy my hamster mix in bulk. It comes in bags but I have an air tight plastic container which is alway shut. It keeps the wild rodents and bugs away. Mice and vole are a real problem here.

One more thing about cages, those neat plastic tubes made popular by Habitrail and Sams are too large for all but the most enormous Dwarf. I got tired of broken legs caused by these tubes and tossed them out. There are smaller tubes for sale in some shops, but I haven’t had any luck integrating them into one of my cages yet. I keep old Christmas paper tubes and toilet paper tubes for the cages. I have about three different sizes of tube and I try to put some of each in each cage.

until 2 in the morning and turns back on at 7 am. To the right is a temperature and humidity gauge that reports to my computer the temp and humidity at 2 in the afternoon and 2 in the morning. It also give the high and low everyday and is set to page me should the temperature get to be over 80 degrees. Campbells are easily capable of withstanding temperatures into the lower 90’s but at higher temperatures their mortality rate climbs. In the wild summers are up in the 100’s during the day and in the 40’s at night. I’m not taking any chances; it gets quite hot here.

As far as items for my cages, I use low profile, inch high ceramic bowls for hamsters mix. This is low enough that the small hamsters can make it into the food at a very young age. I use Kaytee’s Forti-Diet for dry food. Fresh food I put near the food bowl but not in it. I use the medium to small water bottles.. since they need to be refilled every day anyway, they never run out of water even from the smallest bottle.

For bedding, I use two things. I always have some aspen in each cage and I make my own paper litter from brown paper bags I get from the grocer. With a shredder, I cut the bags into thin strips about 6 inches long and an 8th an inch wide. This is just as good as Ecobedding or Carefresh. These mixed with the aspen form really good burrow type nests. I also give the Oasis shred a bed pads. Now, I know that there are warnings about “fluffy bedding” but the Oasis pads aren’t that fluffy and shred into small pieces. I never put more than about a third of a pad in and only when there is a pregnant mother in the cage. This has worked for me; I have never had a complication from it’s use in 10 years.

Wheels

Exercise is important for a hamster. In the wild they may run miles every night. I use the dreaded wire wheels with paper threaded through the rungs so as not to rub the hair off their legs.. I usually get one size up from the smallest size available. I’m now in the process of testing several newly designed wheels. I’ll post the results as I determine them.

What can I say about hamster exercise balls? I have one.. I don’t use it. It’s just too difficult to exercise 50 to 200 hamsters this way. If you have a pet, the ball maybe a good thing for you.. but I don’t recommend leaving it in the ball for more than about 15 minutes at a time. You’d be better off playing with your hamster by hand to keep him tame.