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Can Hamsters Chew Through Bin Cages?

As the popularity of keeping hamsters in bin cages continues to increase due to their low price tags and low maintenance requirement, we have noticed a number of people reaching out to ask various questions about keeping hamsters in bin cages.

One of the most common questions that we have noticed people asking is if hamsters can chew through bin cages as the last thing any hamster owner wants is for their pet to be able to quickly and easily escape.

Due to the majority of bin cages being made from cheap plastic, most hamsters will be able to chew through it if they find a part of the bin cage where they are able to focus their teeth on when chewing.

Thankfully, the smooth curves of many bin cage design prevent your hamster from being able to focus their chewing on a specific area of the bin cage making it difficult for your hamster to chew through the bin cage.

Please note though, just because some bin cage designs do make it more difficult for your pet hamster to focus its chewing on a specific section of the bin cage to chew its way through, it does not mean that your hamster will not be able to escape.

It just means that it will take longer for the hamster to get an initial area where it is able to chew through but once it is able to focus the pressure from its teeth when chewing, it can quickly escape.

Can Hamsters Chew Through Bin Cages?

Many bin cages on the market can easily be chewed through by a hamster as well as most other rodents commonly kept as pets so it is important that you regularly check the bin cage for signs of your hamster chewing through the plastic.

Although it may take a while for your hamster to do the initial chewing required due to the smooth curves and surfaces on your bin cage, if it does end up finding an area to focus the pressure from its jaws a hamster is able to quickly chew through a bin cage with ease.

Although bin cages are rapidly growing in popularity right now, there are more and more reports on social media of pet rodents that are kept in bin cages escaping due to chewing through the plastic.

This is causing some people to just stick with a decent, cheap hamster cage as it offers more protection for preventing your pet hamster from being able to escape while not costing that much more than a bin cage.

If you do keep a bin cage rack due to the number of hamsters that you keep then this is not always possible though as it quickly becomes uneconomical if you are keeping a large number of hamsters at one time.

This is why some people do try to implement various methods to discourage their hamsters from even trying to chew through the plastic of their bin cages but most of the suggestions that we see on social media going over these are questionable at best and we doubt that they will offer many benefits at all.

Is It Normal For Hamster To Chew Through Bin Cages?

Hamsters love to chew things and with the plastic that most bin cages are made from being tough, it presents a good surface for hamsters to chew on making it normal for a hamster to chew on the plastic of their bin cage.

This is not necessarily due to the hamster trying to escape but due to the hamster’s instinct to chew on various things simply being part of its nature.

As we mentioned above though, the designs of some bin cages do make it difficult for a hamster to focus the pressure from its jaws on any given area of the bin cage making it less likely that they will try chewing the plastic that their bin cage is made from.

You can further reduce the odds of the hamster focusing its chewing attention on its bin cage by providing it with other suitable chews that have proven popular with hamsters for them to chew on.

In some situations, this can totally prevent your hamster from trying to chew on its bin cage plastic as its instinct to chew things is occupied with the hamster chews that you provide it.

In turn, this then reduces the risk of your pet hamster actually chewing through its bin cage and escaping making hamster chews an excellent investment for any hamster keeper who uses bin cages.

How Do I Get My Hamster To Stop Chewing On His Bin Cage?

The best way to stop your hamster from chewing on its bin cage is to offer other surfaces for it to chew to satisfy the natural urge of your hamster to chew things.

There are a number of suitable hamster chews on the market that you are able to purchase to use with the majority of the modern hamster chews having a great reputation within the community.

We would never recommend that you even try some of the chemical based solutions that we see people suggesting on social media as they can cause problems with your hamster’s health.

Another thing that we have seen some people suggest is to spray the plastic of your hamster’s bin cage with bitter apple spray but again, this can cause a number of issues due to your hamster’s sense of smell being overwhelmed with the bitter apple spray and your hamster essentially being trapped in the bin cage that smells of it.

Although it gets mixed feedback due to it not working with some hamsters, we have seen some people say that they use a fake cardboard base on top of the actual base of the bin cage to get their hamster to chew that rather than the plastic.

You have to consider the potential problems of impaction in your hamster if it eats the card with this method though so we would usually discourage it, especially for people new to keeping pet hamsters.

Conclusion

That brings our article going over if hamsters can chew through bin cages to an end and we hope that you have found our article helpful. Although bin cages are very popular, they do have their problems that are becoming widely known due to the popularity of bin cage setups for pet rodents. In all fairness though, due to their low price tags, you can’t expect a bin cage setup to be perfect so you will always have problems no matter what you try with it.