Dwarf hamsters should never be bathed in water but they do enjoy rolling in bath sand. Mine are always kicking the sand out of their bath tub. Also, my original hamster bath tub was tiny, made from plastic, and as you can see from the photo, it gets chewed on! I could get a chew-proof ceramic bath, but I had plenty of material leftover from my last DIY hamster platform project so I decided to build one.

This hamster bath house / giant bath tub was made with leftover wood dowels, popsicle sticks, and part of an old gift box. Since it’s mostly wood and cardboard, it’s not so bad if the hamster chews on it. Plus it’s much bigger and a hamster would have to kick the sand pretty high to get them out. It’s easy to build, requires few materials and took me only twenty minutes at most.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Some readers have reported hamsters getting their legs stuck between the popsicle stick wall. To prevent this from happening, please build the bath house with sticks placed horizontally (unlike the photo above which shows the sticks placed in a vertical position)

Materials needed for DIY Hamster Bath House

• Base: cardboard box or old gift box
  I used the cover of an old gift box to make the base. You want something that’s hard enough, so use anything that’s made from cardboard or harder. Old plastic containers would probably be fine too.
• Wall: ice-cream or popsicle sticks
  These will form the wall around your base and prevent the sand from getting kicked out.
• Entrance: wood dowels, or cut-up popsicle sticks
  I used the leftover wood dowels from the DIY hamster platform but you could cut up popsicle sticks for the entrance too. We want the entrance to be a little lower so your hamster can get in easily.
• PVA glue to stick everything together

Instructions for DIY Hamster Bath House

1. Glue popsicle sticks to the sides and back of the base to form walls.
2. On the front of the base, leave enough space for an entrance and glue the popsicle sticks on both sides of the entrance
3. Glue the wood dowels or cut-up popsicle sticks to make an entrance that’s a little lower than the rest of the popsicle stick wall
4. Decorate your bath tub and fill with sand

That’s it! If you wanted to, you could probably add a roof or even convert this into a hamster house.

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I wanted to make a platform for my dwarf hamsters because the one that came with their cage was kind of ugly. After looking at Nikkigrace’s Ikea Knuff hamster platform on Hamster Central, I was inspired to make my own DIY hamster platform.

This platform is suitable for dwarf hamsters. There’s enough space for a hamster (or two) to go on it as well as sleep under it. My dwarf hamsters seem to like sleeping under the platform during the day. Scroll down for detailed instructions to make this platform ^_^

Time taken to build this hamster platform: About 30 minutes (not including time taken for glue to dry)

Materials for DIY Hamster Platform

Here are the materials I used and instructions to make them. Note: I didn’t make any stairs because I forgot! Luckily, my dwarf hamsters were able to climb up the platform on their own. You could probably make stairs with popsicle sticks or paper tubes if you wanted to. You could also use these bendable fiddlesticks as makeshift stairs.

• Platform base: A piece of corkboard – $2
  I used a round corkboard for this because I wanted something different. You could use a square one or even cut out your own shapes
• Fence: 2 packets (40 pieces each) of 8 x 40 mm wooden dowels – $4
  There were 80 pieces of wooden dowels but I didn’t finish using all of them. You might need to get more or less depending on the size of the platform base
• Legs for platform: 30 x 90mm cylindrical wood pieces  – $2
  I used only three legs and I should have used four! But it’s not wobbly so nevermind. You’ll need more or less depending on the platform base. You can also use shorter legs to make a lower platform.
• PVA glue to stick everything together – $2

Total cost: 10SGD (approximately 8USD)

You should be able to find these materials easily in a hardware store. Amazon also carries wood dowels but I think they’re kind of pricey. If you’re in Singapore, I got all of these items from Daiso Sembawang — the corkboard is in the Stationery section and the rest are from the Crafts section.

DIY Hamster Platform Instructions

1. Glue the legs to the base and wait about 10 to 15 minutes for the glue to hold it together. I used three legs, but like I mentioned earlier, you could use more or less legs depending on the shape of your platform and how stable you want it to be.
   
2. Flip the platform over and stick the wooden dowels along the edges of the base. Turn your platform as you stick the dowels so you can see clearly whether you’re sticking them in the correct position.
   
3. Remember to leave an opening in the fence for your hamster to go on the platform.
   
4. Put PVA glue on the outside of the fence between the dowels to make them less likely to fall out. You want to put glue on the bottom half only so that if your hamster chews on the fence, it doesn’t eat the glue too (although PVA glue is hamster-safe, it’s better if they don’t eat it).
   
5. Leave it alone for a few hours to dry and we’re done! ^_^
   

Ready-made hamster platforms

Super Pet Woodland Getaway

If you prefer not to make your own, there are plenty of hamster platforms available for purchase as well. A good one would be the Super Pet Woodland Getaway which is a platform and a house in one. For under 10 bucks, you can get a medium-sized platform/house that has enough space for a hamster or two to nest in and climb on. Larger sizes are also available but they might be a little too big for a dwarf hamster to climb onto. This is made from wood that is safe for animals (our DIY platform is too!) so there’s no issue if your hamsters chew on it.

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