Paper Roll Fun : Homemade Hamster Toys
The hamster tube is one of the all around easiest and cheapest of toys to make. You simply take one of those inner cardboard tubes that form the center of either paper towels or bathroom tissue.
Luckily, for hamster owners they don't have to worry about birds of prety carying off their favorite pet! But they will still like to crawl in and out of these paper tubes. You may find that bathroom tissue tubes are a bit too short to have a lot of fun with, at about six inches long. However, these can be good for actually leaving INSIDE your hamster's cage. Paper towel tubes might be a better bet since most are about 12 inches long, but they may take up too much space inside a cage. So you can use them when you take your hamster out of doors.
Simply place the roll on the ground and put the hamster down right in front of it. Chances are that your little friend will run right into the tube! It can be fun to block one end of the tube so he has to turn around. Another fun trick is to place the tube so that one end is on a slight incline. A small paperback book can provide the extra height.
Many people make elaborate connected labyrinths of paper tubes, much like the plastic tube sets they sell in the stores. One problem with paper tubes is that they aren't transparent so you can't see your hamster crawling through the actual tubes. So you just have to trust that they are having fun traversing your tube creations!
Warning: Be careful when your hamster crawls into the tube, as he may stay in there for awhile. You don't want to forget and have someone accidentally step on the tube or lift it up as he's running out! As always, please supervise hamsters at ALL times to make sure nothing happens to them especially if you are playing with them outside their cages.
