General Info: A dirty cage brings more potentail for infection and sickness for your Hamster as bacteria grows freely in a dirty wet environment.

SOME TIPS FOR PROPER CAGE MAINTENANCE:
1. Clean the cage floor twice a week by removing the litter and cleaning the inside of the cage completely. Place newpapers all around and under the cage. Remove toys, wheels,food trays, etc.

2. Remove all the bedding and clean the bottom using the animal safe cleaner and rinse with water. Roll up the newpaper will all the bedding etc. and throw in garbage.

3. Clean all the toys food trays etc., do not use soap on food trays just warm or hot water and a rag or sponge.

4. Never use phenols or carbolic acid type cleaning chemicals like the kind you might find in the grocery store. They contain chemicals that are harmful to your pet.

5. Always follow the instructions on any chemical you may buy for you pet. If you clean on a regular basis it will reduce the need for allot of chemicals keeping your pet safer

I quickly learned that the best results come from being prepared. Gather the shampoo, conditioning rinse (optional), and towels at the bath site. A deep sink or a tub will work best, as anything too shallow will encourage escapees! Prepare a draft-free drying area—perhaps the floor of a ferret-proofed bathroom—with a pile of absorbent towels or blankets that your fuzzy friend can burrow through. Clean his ears and trim his nails first, if needed, since those can be messy tasks. And finally, encourage the ferret to visit the litter box before heading to the bath.

When running your ferret’s bath, make sure the water feels quite warm to you but is not scalding. Remember that your ferret’s normal body temperature is higher than yours; you want her to be comfortable.

Oh no, not shampoo! But into every ferret life a little soap must come. Select either a shampoo made specifically for ferrets or a kitten-safe tearless shampoo. If your ferret seems comfortable standing on the non-slip mat, put a hand under her belly to support her spine while washing. Otherwise, drape her along your arm to support her body, letting her legs dangle on either side. Work the shampoo into her fur by rubbing against the direction of growth to get through that dense undercoat.

Use a washcloth to safely scrub the ferret’s cheeks; the glands there secrete sebum, which may discolor the fur, and hormones in the sebum leave an odor. And don’t forget the tail!

The bathwater may cool quickly, so try rinsing your ferret under running water to ensure warmth and a faster, easier rinse. Using a conditioning rinse may result in silkier-feeling fur for a while. Again, working the rinse into the dense fur is the key to a good result. Once she realizes the bath is over, your ferret will try to fly out of your arms like a damp rocket, so be quick with a towel for a brisk rub! Then let her loose in the drying area and sit back for a laugh. Expect a bottlebrush tail, chattered complaints, war dancing, frantic shaking, and a general blur of fur as your girl indignantly bounces off of everything in sight!

Precautions:
And here’s the most important tip: Don’t overbathe your ferret! For most ferrets, once every 3 months—or when getting into a mess demands it—is plenty. More frequent bathing may actually result in a stinky, itchy ferret. Washing strips the oils from fur and skin, causing the body to work overtime to replace them. Since the oils are what contain the light musky odor of a normal ferret, the smell may become stronger within a couple of days of bathing, then fade again. Better to be scrupulous about clean litter boxes and weekly changes of cloth bedding to keep your ferret fresh!

Technique:

Potassium Permanganate – is an excellent oxidizing agent that can destroy most organic compounds, then itself breaks down into quite harmless compounds. We have used Jungle’s “Clear Water” at five to ten times the directed dose with very good results. After adding permanganate, stir the gravel, then allow to percolate through the filter system until the pink/purple color begins to turn brown. Completely drain and refill the tank, and it should be ready to go again in a few hours.

Chlorine Bleach – is even more effective, but harder to remove, and more dangerous if not 100% neutralized. Add about one teaspoon of bleach per gallon of water, and let flow through the system for one hour. Then, remove all water, refill, and add any cheap chlorine neutralizer at about 10 times its normal dose. Wait another hour, then change all water and refill again. Caution: this treatment kills everything, including beneficial bacteria, so tank will certainly cycle again once fish are added. It may also fade artificial plants and colored gravels.

Aquarium Salt – is less effective than either of the above, but very safe and easy to remove. Perhaps the best way to utilize salt is to drain the tank first, then make a slurry of a handful of salt to scrub glasses and stir into gravel. Repeat until all surfaces have been scrubbed. This highly concentrated salt solution is very deadly to most parasites. After treatment, fill, drain completely, and refill the tank before using.

Fresh Water – is to a salt water tank what the above salt method is to a freshwater tank. To administer, simply drain the marine aquarium, then refill with fresh water. Allow to filter for 24 hours, then drain and refill with salt water.

Precautions:
Any “nuked” tank might go through a “New Tank Syndrome”, so the aquarist should be prepared and restart with a few, hardy fish. Also, please read product labels for directions on how to safely handle chemicals.

Aquarium filters are marvelous devices, saving aquarists a lot of work as they collect waste products for easier removal. But that “removal” remains the hobbyist’s job, and one that should not be taken lightly.

Nearly all filters, even so-called “biological” filters like undergravels and certain slow-flow canisters, perform “mechanical” filtration; that is, they collect a certain amount of solid waste. Some, like most power filters and fast-flow canisters, are specifically designed to collect such waste efficiently, rather than allow it to accumulate in the aquarium.

But collecting waste is only the beginning, with removal and disposal completing the picture. Is it good enough to just collect garbage in the kitchen wastebasket indefinitely, without ever taking it out to the garbage truck? (Men and teenagers: ask your wives or mothers if not sure about this.) Well, it’s not good enough to simply put a filter on an aquarium, and consider the job done.

For one thing, aquarium filters often double as circulation/aeration devices. As they become clogged with waste products, their flow rates drop or even cease altogether, drastically reducing the amount of dissolved oxygen available for the livestock. In extreme cases, whole tanks full of fish can be lost in a few hours. Under less drastic circumstances, fish can become more prone to disease and overall health and growth can be diminished.

But even if there is adequate circulation from other sources, there’s no good reason to allow filters to become overloaded with waste. Rotting waste in a filtration device fouls the water every bit as much as rotting waste in the aquarium itself. In fact, it can be said that a filter isn’t a filter unless it’s cleaned.

Technique:

Inside – Commercial pad-type scrubbers are abrasive enough to remove algae and other growths, but not enough to scratch the glass. The new, plastic blade scrapers are even more effective, but dull fairly quickly. Single edge razor blades are even more effective, but care must be taken not to scratch the glass or slice into a seal. Each style works best if held directly in the hand, but long-handled or magnetic models are available for those who wish to remain dry.

Outside – A squeegee works very well if there is no concern about a little water on the floor, but a soft cloth or paper towel with plain water works, too. Ammonia based glass cleaning chemicals can be carefully used on the outside of the tank, but they should be sprayed on the cloth rather than the tank itself, to avoid contaminating the aquarium. Plain newspaper, lightly moistened with plain water, gives amazingly streak-free results.

Great care should be taken to avoid scratching the glass. This is most often done by using too abrasive a cleaner, or by getting aquarium gravel trapped in the cleaning device and dragging it across the glass.

Acrylic (Plexiglas) aquariums require extra special care, as they are easily scratched by common glass-cleaning devices or chemically damaged by glass-cleaning chemicals. Use only products specially labelled as safe for acrylic.