I finally get to bring my first ever hammy home on Tuesday! Rate my setup before he gets here?
First photo: 48x20x20inch plastic-coated wood-framed tank with a plastic liner on the bottom and wire mesh top, with added child safety locks at every point of entry/exit bc I've been told he (a Syrian) is a known escape artist. Most of it has ten inches of undyed paper bedding except for...
Second photo: ..the very left side so the 12-inch wheel and heavy ceramic dish that will be a cork dig pit (both of which are atop sturdy, if short, supports) will be accessible. There's also a cardboard tube foraging toy I made that some of the tubes will be filled with treats and all of them will be stuffed with toilet paper to encourage him to find his own food. To make the incline to higher bedding a little easier, I made a corrugated cardboard bridge (with cardboard supports on the inside to keep it from collapsing), covered in cork granules for texture (it, an everything else glued, is with Elmer's School Glue). There's also a little burrow-encourager buried in the bedding, made of a small open-ended box with extra holes cut on each side. In the very back is a toilet paper tube with applewood twig chews sticking out of it. Further right, a repurposed flower pot that's made of thick, plain white, 3D-printed PLA (this one appears to be heavily debated. Plain PLA is nontoxic and is a hard plastic which seems to make it safe, but at the first sign of chewing I'm yoinking it out of the tank), that looks like many faces sticking out of it is on its side and half-buried in the bedding.
Third photo: in the center back is a large, deep, rectangular cookie tin (also supported underneath) is buried in the bedding, that will be filled with dust-free bath sand. Behind the pot is a piece of basswood, a reject from a whittling piece. Beside the bath tin is a hollow coconut facing in the other direction as the flower pot. In the far corner is a standing sippy bottle made level by a small cookie tin lid. In the front is another tin lid, heart-shaped, that is the temporary food plate (the ceramic bowl that became the cork pit was originally ordered to be the food dish, before realizing upon arrival it was much too big). Beside that is a two-chambered cardboard hideaway, with the second chamber mostly closed off but with a few gaps up and down for peeking out (the hideaway does not have a floor). Next to that is a simple piece of cardboard folded over once to form a little tent for peeking out the front right corner.
I made the executive decision to not add sprays or other edible arrangements, as this HamHam is a very picky eater who only eats really crappy Oxbow junkfood, so no extra snacks as I try to wean him onto a more nutritious food. I also didn't add mosses because I read it can make enclosures humid and I already live in a very humid climate (for the record, tank thermometer and humidity gage is already on the way). I meant to add slate, but what arrived wasn't slate and was way too dusty to be safe, so I'm waiting for the refund of that order to come thru. Also, there's a seagrass tube large enough for a Syrian on its way too.
So what do you think? Any last minute additions needed other than what's in the last paragraph? Anything I can do to lay out what I've got better? Is it big enough? Do you think he'll be happy? I've never had a hamster (or any pet rodent) before, but I've wanted one for years and did off-and-on research until I started doing more thorough research the last few months. He's already a year old so I want to make sure everything is as perfect for him as I can make it so he doesn't spend the rest of his life in the ten gallon tank at the animal shelter.