• deep area - 40cm (16in) deep for digging / building tunnels
  • flat area
  • hamster stuff
  • hamster stuff
  • space for other stuff
  • bike computer
  • I took these photos myself, they were shown publicly in a city college for a while. The left one actually won me a book on last year's Scott Kelby photo walk.
  • food list / care instructions. as a reminder for me and for when I'm away and other people care for my hamster
  • sweet little Sonic, my hamster (heart)
  • ventilation grille
  • ventilation grille
  • ventilation grille
  • ventilation grille
  • wood shavings: DO NOT USE cedar or pine shavings! They are bad for your hamster's health. Use aspen or birch shavings instead, they are fine!

Hamster cage based on IKEA EXPEDIT / Hamstergehege aus IKEA EXPEDIT

Newer Older

********************************************************************** *****************************************
More natural looking hamster cages can be found on my blog: hamstergehege.blogspot.com/ with German and English descriptions.
********************************************************************** *****************************************

Sonics new home, made from an 5x5 IKEA EXPEDIT. As you can see I shortened it to 3x5 and added feet (IKEA Capita) for a more "lightweight" look. The cage is 175cm x 38cm inside (69in x 15in).

It has a deep area for digging/building tunnels and a flat area for the sand and where I positioned heavier "furniture". The small picture frame on the left is the list of feeding and care instructions. The small thing sitting on top in the middle is the bike computer that measures the hamster wheel. This cage is for a dwarf hamster.

To those folks who bash the cage on their tumblr blogs because I use WOOD SHAVINGS: get your facts straight! Wood shavings are only bad if they are cedar or pine, if you use aspen shavings they are perfectly ok.

If you want to see more about the cage and it's "making of", just follow this album: EXPEDIT hamster cage (Album)

www.pawesome.net/ has featured written instructions on how I built this cage.

SONIC's cage made it into the top 10 list for "best IKEA hack of 2009" on the IKEA hacker blog!! Top 10 list here: ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-here-again-vote-for-y...
So if you like the cage, please go to answers.polldaddy.com/poll/2471449/ and vote for her cage ("Hamster haven")! Thank you!! UPDATE: the poll is closed and

Sonics cage won best IKEA hack of 2009 with 1137 votes (28%)! YAY! Thank you all for voting!

Also, for the German speakers among you, her cage has been featured on
StyleSpion and myCampbell
myCampbell also did an Interview with me (in German).
Das Gehege wurde auch in diesem Artikel über die Ausstellung "Phänomen IKEA" im Hofmobiliendepot in Wien auf FM4/ORF erwähnt:

More natural looking hamster cages can be found on my blog: hamstergehege.blogspot.com/ with German and English descriptions.

(^-^) SUE (^-^), springhawk, GoldnGirlr, unsped, and 111 other people added this photo to their favorites.

View 20 more comments

  1. tina_6500 39 months ago | reply

    UPDATE: added a real living plant to the cage and some decorative "play food":

  2. phantomsgf 38 months ago | reply

    O.O wow

  3. kahandra_83 [deleted] 35 months ago | reply

    Wahnsinn! Ein Paradies für Sonic!

  4. tina_6500 35 months ago | reply

    I habe ein ähnliches Gehege einer anderen Halterin auf meinem Blog vorgestellt:
    I posted a similar cage from another hamster owner on my blog:
    hamstergehege.blogspot.com/2010/07/ikea-expedit-fur-yoyo-...

  5. bsheridan1959 35 months ago | reply

    This is the most amazing hamster cage I have ever seen. It must be in HOG heaven in there!! Love it!!

  6. tina_6500 34 months ago | reply

    Thanks! :) Feel free to steal any ideas for your own cages.

  7. cindylisisu 34 months ago | reply

    Feel very good

  8. tina_6500 31 months ago | reply

    See the current setup of this cage for my two new russian campbell's dwarf girls here:

  9. Ninithedreamer 30 months ago | reply

    Have you sent this in to Ikea? They totally should do some kind of photo gallery of things done with ikea furniture!

  10. tina_6500 30 months ago | reply

    I sent it to our local IKEA Family Live Magazine but never heard back from them. From what I've read IKEA is not too keen on hacks.

  11. TwitchyNose 27 months ago | reply

    Holy cow! This is just fantastic...

  12. tina_6500 23 months ago | reply

    ********************************************************************************
    Please support me and VOTE for my wild hamster photos at the
    National Wildlife Federation Photo Contest HERE.
    Voting is possible once a day until the 14th of August 2011, so if you find the time I'd really appreciate it.
    Thank you!
    ********************************************************************************

  13. tina_6500 22 months ago | reply

    Some clarification on ventilation. It's not really visible in this pic, but of course the cage has ventilation. There are ventilation grilles on the left and right as well as on the top of the cage. You can see it a bit better on this construction poto:

    Now for a large group of mice or rats who pee a lot this would not be enough (group animals which pee lots and use pee to mark their territory really need *lots* of ventilation), but hamsters pee little and use their scent glands for marking instead of urine so ventilation is not such a big issue for them anyway.

    In addition, when judging ventilation, take into account the position of the vent grilles. If they are all on the same side you need a bigger opening than if they are on opposite sides of the cage. This is the same as when you air your room/appartment/house - if you only have windows on one side you have to open them wide to air your room well. If you have windows on opposite sides of your appartmen or house it will air very well even if you only open the windows a crack. This is because with opposing grilles the air can flow through the cage.

  14. tommardt 22 months ago | reply

    Amazing cage. I'm actually going to build something like this for my wife for her birthday. She recently got a hamster and we both hate all the crappy little plastic cages they sell in stores here. I love the wheels. Any idea how I can get those in the US? Thanks.

  15. tina_6500 22 months ago | reply

    thank you!

    The wheel is a Karlie Wonderland. No idea if they are available in the US. If you can't find them I'd recommend getting a Transoniq WodentWheel instead. That's a US brand and very good, even ASPCA approved. See here: www.transoniq.com/ You can get the brown/green color combination so it won't look out of place in a natural style cage. And if you haven't been there already check out my blog for more hamster cage ideas: hamstergehege.blogspot.com/

  16. sunnicali88 20 months ago | reply

    Hello Tina!
    I love you large and natural dwarf hamster habitat. You are a genius! It is beautiful, and I have been thinking for a long time about doing something similar for my two robo dwarf hammies, Cookie and Snowflake. We are all tired of ugly, plastic cages!

    Is it OK if I email you with specific questions about this project?

    I was thinking of doing something similar with the Expedit case, but with both sides visible in order to divide my living room and office space. I wanted something secure, and visible so that I could always keep an eye on the rascals whom like to explore, climb, and escape!

  17. tina_6500 19 months ago | reply

    sorry for the late answer, haven't been on much lately. Email away, you're welcome! I actually have an example of an Expedit cage used as a room divider on my blog: hamstergehege.blogspot.com/2010/08/9234cm-im-expedit-fur-... if you want to take a look (scroll down for the English description).

  18. wangjianshe 17 months ago | reply

    真漂亮

  19. chesnutboo 5 months ago | reply

    My bad, I accidentily commented this on a diff photo..
    How much did this cost to build?

  20. tina_6500 4 months ago | reply

    oh, sorry, forgot to answer that. Let's see - I paid €50,- for the Expedit (used) and about €80,- for the glass, the LED light went down in price and now costs only €30,- at IKEA. The most expensive other parts are the nice ventilation grilles - I think I paid almost another €80,- for all the grilles (inside and out) because aluminum is rather expensive. That's around €240,- plus the other parts (IKEA feet, wardrobe backplate, plexi glass for the front of the digging area, some wood, screws, aquarium silicone to seal everything,...) - well, I guess about €300,- in total.

keyboard shortcuts: ← previous photo → next photo L view in light box F favorite < scroll film strip left > scroll film strip right ? show all shortcuts