Worried about my hamster (or just overprotective?)

Silaqui

Oops dunno what happened there - wasn't quite finished!
But hopefully she is getting to be a bit more brave.
I like the idea of the tissue box, might have to try that - bless her she has so much stuff in her cage maybe I'm overloading her! She has a little blue plastic house, toilet roll, a couple of chewing sticks, a wooden log thing with holes in, and of course the tunnel that she won't come out of!
I'll keep persevering!

RebekahR

Ooooh I know a wesbite you might want to check out is called Hamster Hideout. Awesome forum there for hammy lovers.
I currently have a Roboveroski hamster. She is a dwarf. We got her and her sister together but her sister died a couple of months ago. :-(

jessicamb

instead of giving your hamster bedding for nesting have you tried giving him/her toilet paper? I'm lazy and give mine her own toilet roll (value of course - less than £1 for 12 rolls) and she can pull off what she wants for her bedding as and when she wants it. That must be moneysaving compared to the amount they charge in petshops for bedding material.

RebekahR

I wouldn't advise any bedding that is not from the shop. The value paper can be very thin and get stuck in hamsters pouches :-(

ClareEmily

Hi there

I currently have two hammy's (one rescued) in separate glass tanks.

What you describe is very normal, as long as the food had gone in the morning, she is fine (they do store a lot of food BTW).

Do not give them toilet tissue (this will not keep them warm and once wet will just turn into a soggy mess, and like another poster said they will put it in their pouch) or cotton wool, they need safe bedding, if it is easy to break it is safe, some of the fluff bedding out there can get wound around their legs.

You will need lots of patience before they will feel safe enough to sit on your hands. One of my hammy's will come out straight away when he hears our voices and is happy to be handled the other will not get up until we go to bed.

Some taming advise here:

http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/hamsters/a/hamstercare_2.htm

roguebrogue

I use shavings for the base of the cage and give my hammie some sheets of toilet paper for bedding. She shreds it up herself.
As long as it's unscented it's fine. I've been doing it for months and it hasn't caused any problems, and she doesn't get it wet either.

get_me_out

I for one would NOT feed through the bars. She may by accident nip fingers at the bars if half a sleep. Always best to feed inside the cage never through the bars.

I used to keep rats had 6 at one time, but sadly they died of old age over time. Had hamsters as well since being a child.

Silaqui

Hi everyone, thank you again for all the advice people have given it's brilliant! And all the websites and stuff they were really useful.
Last night was a bit of a breakthrough with Poppy (yep that's her name) - the tunnel where she sleeps really needed cleaning out because I could see that some of the bedding wasn't looking too clean (I suppose thats one advantage of her sleeping in a seethrough tube!) so I though when she went down to get some food, I'd take the tunnel apart and give it a bit of a clean.
Well the cheeky money only came back up again! Bless her she probably thought I was stealing her bed, suppose I was in a way! But she kept sort of kicking the bedding towards me, which was helpful but very messy, then turning round and popping her head out of the open tunnel. So I thought I'd try to get her into her ball, not holding out much hope, put it at the end of the tunnel, and she just walked right in!
So after cleaning the cage and letting her run about a bit, I thought I'd give her a little treat so she could see she was safe, put the ball on my knee, opened it to give her a couple of seeds and she just wandered out onto my lap!

Wow that was a long description of a very small happening, sorry everyone who has owned lots of hamsters and done it all before! But I'm just glad she seems to trust us now. I suppose the trick now is to see if she will do it again tonight.

I do have a couple more questions now though - she seems to have developed a little habit of nibbling on the bars of the cage. She does have a tunnel made of wood and a couple of those gnawing sticks in there, as well as one of the hanging things with the seeds on - what I've been doing is every time I catch her gnawing the bars, I put one of her chewing sticks in front of her so she chews on that instead?
And another - is it normal for them to pull their poo out of their bum with their mouths? I saw her do this the other day...

Get me out, she has done that to me! But luckily she licks first before biting so you have a chance to move you hand away sharpish!
Sorry for the huge post!

ClareEmily

Silaqui wrote: »

she seems to have developed a little habit of nibbling on the bars of the cage. She does have a tunnel made of wood and a couple of those gnawing sticks in there, as well as one of the hanging things with the seeds on - what I've been doing is every time I catch her gnawing the bars, I put one of her chewing sticks in front of her so she chews on that instead?
And another - is it normal for them to pull their poo out of their bum with their mouths? I saw her do this the other day...

Get me out, she has done that to me! But luckily she licks first before biting so you have a chance to move you hand away sharpish!
Sorry for the huge post!

Hi there
Sounds like you are making loads of progress already well done you :T

What kind of cage does she have?

We only solved the chewing on the bars by changing to a glass tank with 3 levels. Before that we had habitrail (found this difficult to take apart and clean the tubes) and then to rotastak (which the tubes were held together with sellotape).

One of my hammy's picks up his poos and tosses them out of his bed. So sounds normal-ish lol

P.S A tip - hammy's are very short sighted, so if you have any smells of food on your hands they sometimes will give you a nip, so always wash hands before handling.

Silaqui

The cage she's got is the one in the link (hope it works) http://www.petsathome.com/find/keyword-is-cages/product-is-17990
So its mainly cage, but then there is the tunnel to play in (or in her case, sleep in!). To be honest I'd be a bit reluctant to get a different one because she seems to like climbing up the bars, she's like spider-hamster!

Hmm maybe the poo thing is normal then - rather her than me!