HAMSTER QUESTIONS AND RAT QUESTIONS

Question
Thank you for the good answer in my last question!My friend "Debbie" found a golden hamster in her yard and wants to know about there behavior. She also has a dwarf hamster that bites. She wants to know how to stop this behavior. Thor my baby does not want to be held, how can I change this behavior?
He "poops in my hand" How long is this behavior gonna last for her dwarf hamster and my rat? I clean my cages once a week is this adiquate? Iuse regular carefreshis the cotton white version better? Also my rat Benny pees a lot, it makes my mom put him away can I prevent this, maybe y putting him in his litter box before hand? THANK YOU! My big cage is 6 cubic feet, and Bennies and Thors cages are 21/2 cubic feet if that helps  

Answer
Hello, how is thor and benny doing? Well, hmmmm.. lets see well it's odd that she found a hamster outside her house but it's a good thing though. Golden hamsters get 6-8 inch long and can live for 2-3 years. They really do need to be in a wire cage instead of the plastic cage with tubes because when they get bigger they have been known to get stuck in those type of cages. A cage that is at least 16in. long is ideal for these hamsters and they also like to climb. They are great escape artist as well. They are not as docile as dwarf hamsters but they still make a great pet. When it comes to biting it's really hard to train them to stop doing it as it is part of their nature. Sometimes you can try bitter apple spray and spray that on your hands before handling them. Choobles my hamster bites me and I figured out that if I wash my hands to get any scent off of them and I put a few of his favorite seeds in my hand and open the latch of the cage and allow him onto my hand he doesn't bite me because he sees the reward. If he does bite me I quickly put him back in the cage. As far as pooping on your hand goes, that's just something they are going to do since they aren't that good with housetraining. Changing their cage out once a week is great and good and the white carefresh bedding is great to use. I use the colored carefresh bedding for my hamster and it's the same as the white carefresh bedding only died. To try to help your rat from peeing on your hand put him in the litter box before hand or what you can do is to get some paper towels or something and take him out the cage and put him on those for a few minutes so he can pee and poo on them. That's what I normally do with choobles. Although it doesn't bother me if it does use my hand as a bathroom because he's a hamster and all he cares about is eating.