Small rodent owners how often do you clean your cages?

small rodent owners how often do you clean your cages I recently got my son two hamsters and I clean the cage once a week in a 50/50 bleach solution followed by a lengthy clean water rinse and towel dry and within about a day it starts to smell like urine again should I be cleaning it every day its a hamster trail Deluxe and has many components perhaps I need a different cage that doesn't have so many small nooks for bacteria and what not to thrive?Small rodent owners how often do you clean your cages?
I clean my cage once a week as well. I have a large three story ';All Living Things'; brand cage like this one:


http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.js鈥?/a> I find that cleaning once a week is more than sufficient. I sometimes can even go for two weeks without cleaning, and his cage usually smells fine!





However, it seems that I have slightly different cleaning methods than you. I have a wire cage with two trays (one that slides out). I take the trays off from the cage and I wash these. The way that I wash is I dump out all of the old bedding and food. I then take the trays into the backyard and hose them down. After this, I scrub down the trays with DISH SOAP (this works very well). I usually use a large brush to spread around the soap and clean the trays and then a toothbrush to scrub the harder-to-reach areas. I also use an old, small, blunt knife to scratch off anything that doesn't come off with the brushes.





After washing both trays, I take out the wire part of the cage and hose it down. Usually soap isn't necessary for this part. I paper-towel dry the separate parts of the cage dry. I then wash my hamster's toys, food dish, and water bottle in the sink with dish soap and hot water. After this, I put bedding into the cage, set it all up, and put in my hamster!





I am guessing that the cage you have is something like this:


http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.js鈥?/a>


For this cage, I would recommend taking out the second story and the top of the cage from the bottom section (if possible and not too much of a hassle) and then washing it out like I described. If this is hard to do, I would just recommend dumping out the old bedding and opening up the cage and cleaning it as well as you can.





These are also a great products to use:


http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.js鈥?/a> (a spray that you can use to clean your cage)


http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.js鈥?/a> (a deodorizer)


If you still have odor control issues with your hamster between cleanings, I would recommend just quickly dumping out his bedding and spraying down his cage with these products between cleanings!





I hope this helped, and good luck!