Female syrian’s escaping behavior causing repeated injuries and infections. I need help.

[Cryptillian]

Summary: My 1 year old female Syrian hamster is obsessed with escaping and subsequently injuring herself as well as chewing and scratching at her scabs not allowing them to heal and causing multiple infections despite being on gabapentin. What can I do to help her? She’s in a 15.5sq ft enclosure and has everything she could dream of.

I am from the US in case that is important context. I originally met my 1 year old female Syrian hamster at the shelter just to look at hamsters, I was planning on adopting a month later when I had everything I need. My first impression of her was she was the only one awake, obsessively chewing on the bars. She gladly climbed on me, gave me a little nip but she was only a month old. Fast forward she was the last one left out of maybe 15-20 hamsters, I guess she’s a problem child. I think nothing of it. Well I was sorely unprepared.

Rupee is fed a food from Etsy, has a 12in wheel, multiple big sand baths, dog boxes with different textures, chews, toys, hides, deep bedding, sprays I get from Ukraine, ceramic hides, like you name it I’ve got it and tried it. I spend like 200$ a month on this hamster. I put treats in toys every day for her to get into and she loves that but sometimes even from 7pm to 10am she is digging and chewing at a corner. Now she is now able to get out but it’s only made her more frantic to pacing and trying to climb the walls. I feel awful. I know female Syrian hamsters can be like this but my boyfriend had one and it was never this bad.

Rupee has an extreme obsession with escaping. I don’t know if it’s in part to growing up for 2 months in a tiny wire cage (shelter had no resources for hamsters) but her first cage with me was about 1000 sq inches. She gets around a hour, sometimes more, of time out with me. Her favorite activity is burrowing in a pile of blankets.

She escaped her first cage so I upgraded her to a double pawhut. She escaped 3 times then from that, the last time she managed to chew around a screw holding wire mesh to the corner where she liked to bite to remove it, and squeezed herself to the wood again and make another hole while I was away on vacation (family watching her) which then she burrowed into my rug and destroyed over 6 sq ft of carpet, she ripped up some clothes and made a nest on my bed. She never left my room and when I came home she actually climbed up my bed from a blanket draping off of it and stared at me while I was trying to sleep which is how I found her. Actually every time she escaped and I would come home, she would walk right up to me and want to be picked up.

I asked in another group what to use for an escape proof cage, then I bought two bucastate 3.0 enclosures (which have worked perfectly). In the meantime I had to put her in a small spare fish tank until it arrived (1 week) with her essentials. She managed to get a small injury on her leg on the last day during that week. I thought nothing of it, it scabbed over fine. That’s when after two weeks I noticed it didn’t seem to heal, stayed the same. A week later the scab would triple in size over 4 days while I was away dog sitting. I would find several more small injuries, like small scratches or bumps, all over her that I didn’t notice before, and she would then get a small abscess that burst the day I found it, which I cleaned at home and brought her to the exotic vet (where I work) in the morning. There was no sign of irritation or infection luckily because I cleaned it up so well, but we started antibiotics and pain meds.

Unfortunately she moved from her leg to her stomach and other areas, picking every little scratch no matter how small. So we got her on gabapentin to curb the behavior. I was going on vacation again but my sister has some experience with helping me with old/sick pets and looked after her. She actually healed very well, no reoccurrence in infection, but did get some more small injuries, all of which healed/are healing perfectly already cause she didn’t touch them.

I came home from vacation and Rupee’s escaping behavior was exploding, she was more frantic than ever. I am worried somehow I am a trigger for her having because my sister said she did not act like that while I was away, but it’s hard to tell because she wasn’t with her all day/night. She managed to figure out how to ninja crawl up certain walls so I had to remove and move some things. She was injuring herself more again. She’s calmed down now that I’ve been home a few days, but the two areas on her stomach she had previously bothered were almost healed, scabs almost off, she started removing the scabs prematurely herself before she was healed which opened her skin to infection. I have cleaned everything again and removed whatever scab I could that was hanging by cutting it, but I am so upset and don’t know what to do.

I have tried a cone, but she finds ways to remove the ones I make, she cannot use her wheel in them, and I don’t know what other options we have. I will have to bring her back to work and see what they think but I feel like I’ve failed her because it just seems like she so unhappy and stressed. She only looks happy when she’s out with me in the blankets.

I just want to know if there is anything I can do better for her to help her heal. It’s been maybe 1 1/2 - 2 months now since this whole fiasco began and I can’t find any information on how to help her, coworkers don’t have any better ideas, I really need help. I love her and I’m worried this is going to cause a more serious health issue if she doesn’t stop.

 

[Maz]

She only looks happy when she’s out with me in the blankets.

That's a positive. I am so sorry to hear this. Some female syrians are known for being very maverick! The key thing I noticed was you've only had her a couple of months, and she was a baby when you got her, so she is still very young, superactive and it sounds like once she's escaped before, she hasn't really settled. It's still possible, but it's managing things meanwhile. Pawhuts, unfortunately, are easily chewed out of. She is lucky now that she has two Bucatstate's (joined together I'm guessing)? The injuries are concerning though. It sounds like the first one occured when she was in the small tank while moving cages - could she have injured herself on something? Or has she just been scratching with stress?

If she is continuing to get scratches that get infected with nothing that could cause injuries, has she been checked to see if she has mites? That causes them to have raw, sore skin where they scratch. Vets can do a skin scraping and look under a microscope to see if she has demodex mites.

I think the issue at the moment is that she has had some big changes. After escaping a few times and then an enclosure change. Even though the enclosure change was necessary it is still stressful for them to have a complete change of enclosure. Even an enclosure in a different room can cause stress.

It's interesting that she was ok when left with someone. I had a super active syrian who was the same - if we went on holiday and the petsitter came in, he hardly came out at all. They know when something is different. As soon as a got back he was pestering to be out.

So she has a bond with you She loves you. She will also pick up on your stress and that could affect her behaviour as well. But at the moment it sounds like she is trying to train you! So it's a bit of a battle and there's a need to find something that works.

Is there anything else that could be causing her cage stress? Eg does she get cleaned out regularly? Clean outs really stress them and make them want to escape. There's a cage cleaning tips guide on the home page - I'll link it below. Apologies if you already know all that, but it's best not to move things around in the cage. Some people do that to prevent boredom but it can actually make them worse. There also might be two or three key things that help her enjoy her enclosure more. Do you have a photo of her set up? We might be able to suggest something that would help.

Ultimately though she is a super active girl who wants to be OUT! A lot. It will probably be when she sees you. Creating some kind of routine might help. So for example my superactive male would go frantic to be out as soon as he saw me (or my OH but he was worse if it was me). If I left the room or turned the lights out he would stop and just start pootling around his cage and using his wheel.

So it's attention-seeking behaviour. They know you're the person who manages everything and lets them out.

It sounds like you have a routine of having her out of the cage regularly. Is that at the same time each day? Is it in a playpen or does she free roam in a room? What time does she wake up in the evening? What room is her enclosure in? A living room? Your bedroom? If it's the living room, I'd suggest you maybe a) feed a bit later (say 9pm). Assuming she doesn't wake up until feeding time - they come out for the fresh veg particularly b) then let her out to free roam until you're going to bed. Then turn the lights out and go to another room. That has always worked for me - turning the lights out and leaving the room.

An active hamster can take over your evenings!

If her enclosure is in your bedroom that is trickier. Because she knows you're there all the time.

Is there a particular fresh human treat she likes? Eg porridge or scrambled egg? A routine of offering a bit of that on a teaspoon at a certain time of day each day could give her something to focus on at a particular time and distract her.

I would get her checked for mites though as the injuries sound concerning. You probably already know that it's normal for them to have demodex mites living on them. But at times of stress, their immune system is down and mites can proliferate, causing scratching and soreness. It might be the short period of being in the small tank and the cage change stress that triggered a mite issue possibly.

I think you'll get there How long has she been in the Bucatstate now? It can take them a good two weeks to adjust and settle to a new enclosure, even if the layout is identical to before and you moved everything over without cleaning anything and even if you moved all the old bedding over. During that two weeks it's best not to clean anything or change anything. And even after that, just spot clean the pee (if you know where it is!). If you don't know where it is, and can't smell anything, don't worry - she will probably chuck out a pile of soiled bedding for you to take away.

I'll wait to hear where her enclosure is before suggesting anything else

Also @Hamster Haven may have some tips as she also has a super active female syrian!

 

[Socks' Mum]

Welcome to the forum I think it is so sweet that she came out to find you after escaping, and even stared at you to wake you up. I hope her injuries heal up and there is a way to satisfy her restlessness.