I can’t remember if I answered this or not… Anyway I just started my first internship after a year of pursuing an environmental science degree. Internships are the best way to see what’s out there job wise. The company I intern for has 4 companies that work together to restore land to a native state. They have a nursery where they collect seeds from native plants that grow on site and elsewhere. They grow the plants and use them for clients or sell them to who ever wants them. There’s quite a few people who work in the nursery and I hope some day I can do something like that. Knowing your plants is a very very useful tool with this degree. I’m currently spraying an invasive grass with herbicide and I will mostly be controlling non native plants on the main company site as well as the owners own property. This is the more physically demanding side where you hand pull weeds, spray them, and do what ever else to eradicate them. I’ve also helped with a prescribed burn which was really cool. The company has burn teams that go out and burn areas that could benefit from controlled fires. There’s also the business side and the consulting side. There are many other things you can do with the degree but this is what interests me so that’s the direction I’m more familiar with at the moment.

What kind of hamster is it? You want to start out with the longest bin you can find and make sure the depth will fir the wheel you want to use. I had to bend my wheel a bit to get it to fit because my teddy bear hamster was too big for the medium sized wheel, he ended up with like a 12 inch wheel I think. Anyway you need to paint the wire mesh a few weeks (2 is recommended) before you finish the cage or put the hamster in it. The paint needs to set and the fumes can be harmful to your hammy until they dissipate at 2 weeks.  I used rustolium spray paint with a white primer, it’s safe if they chew it and it stays on nicely. I used the bin as a reference for how big/small to cut the wire mesh for the 3 sides (I left the back intact so he wouldn’t make a mess kicking things out behind the cage). You can use a marker to draw out your windows and make sure the mesh is about two inches longer on all sides than the window you draw. I used a dremel to cute my windows out and it made things so easy. Some online tutorials say you can use a box cutter but I found that to be very hard and a bit dangerous. Oh keep in mind you want extra space at the bottom for a layer of bedding and to let your hamster kick it up without getting it all over the outside of the cage, I think I left mine 4-5 inches deep. The wire mesh gets connected on the inside of the cage so your hamster can’t get out. Be sure you put it on the inside! Drill holes for the screws (which will also need washers and backs). The more screws the more secure the bin will be. Try to hold your cut out mesh up to the sides to mark where the screw holes should go so they line up properly when you secure it. Put it all together and enjoy! You can find tutorials on how to make a bin cage by googling for them and looking on youtube. I looked over a few to get the right idea and sort of just made my cage how I thought my hamster would want it. You can buy a mesh shelf at like walmart or target I found one in the office supply section and zip tied it into place.