New rescue hamster... is this normal behavior?

[ross1010]

Hi Everyone,

On Tuesday, my daughter adopted a rescue Syrian from the local shelter. It's her first hamster and many decades since I've had one. My daughter is super excited!

The hamster has been a bit of a recluse, resurfacing only around 9 or 10pm for maybe 20 minutes once or twice (for the last two nights). She checked out the large wheel each night, but didn't quite have the hang of it and didn't run much. She did take some food from our hands, and we were able to briefly pet her; however she's disappeared the rest of the time in her burrows. No pee/poop in the sand box or at surface level or in the multi-chamber hide... so, it's all down in her burrows.

Is all this normal?
Given it's the 3rd day, should we be disturbing her burrows to remove any pee? It does smell in the multi-chamber hide, but is largely packed with burrow overflow and don't see any evidence of pee.


Additional background:
The hammy (no name yet, until we hold her a bit) is 6 months old, and came to the shelter with her litter of 6, all of which had already found homes before we arrived. We held her at the shelter, and she appeared alert, curious, active, and healthy. When we got home, she entered her new habitat, and explored a bit, then went into the multi-chamber hide. Much of the night she spent digging burrows in the 7" paper litter - that was fun to see.

 

[Maz]

Hi. Lovely you have the hammy . After all that effort getting the cage right!

To be honest this all sounds perfectly normal for the first 2 or 3 days. It can take then a good 2 weeks to fully adjust to their new enclosure abd environment and start being more outgoing and confident. I would wait until a week before attempting to find the pee so as not to disturb her too much in these first few days.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

 

[Tulsi]

Definitely typical as Maz says.

Hope you and your daughter have lots of fun with her. In my experience female hamsters tend to be more active and to need lots of enrichment. My chocolate brown hamster, Kashi used to love shredding cardboard. I wove it in and out of the bars, which obviously isnt relevant for your (lovely) set up.

She also loved egg boxes with treats hidden inside and a dig box with that special earth that I have forgotten the name of!

 

[ross1010]

Hi. Lovely you have the hammy . After all that effort getting the cage right!

To be honest this all sounds perfectly normal for the first 2 or 3 days. It can take then a good 2 weeks to fully adjust to their new enclosure abd environment and start being more outgoing and confident. I would wait until a week before attempting to find the per so as not to disturb her too much on these first few days.

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Ok, got it. Thanks for the insight on holding off on the cleaning cycle and just watching for a few weeks. I saw this last night, so we didn't disturb... just forgot to click the post button. She spent more time out last night, only problem being she's not surfacing until 9:30, after my daughter goes to bed, so I have to wake her

Definitely typical as Maz says.

Hope you and your daughter have lots of fun with her. In my experience female hamsters tend to be more active and to need lots of enrichment. My chocolate brown hamster, Kashi used to love shredding cardboard. I wove it in and out of the bars, which obviously isnt relevant for your (lovely) set up.

She also loved egg boxes with treats hidden inside and a dig box with that special earth that I have forgotten the name of!

That is good to know.

On the enrichment - for sure. That's what this next week is about. We realize the enclosure is a bit boring at the moment

Ok, a few other questions (for anyone) if it's ok...

We are planning on a few dig bowls, but there are so many substrates to choose from and we're trying to narrow those down. My daughter was thinking of corn cob or cork as one substrate. Will also look for the soil you mentioned... I've seen that somewhere. is it better to have a large single dig box with layers of substrates, or a separate container/bowl for each one (thinking 2-3 dig substrates?) ?

Aside from enrichment, chews are our top priority. She's thought about nibbling some wood in her home.

We have fruit trees and I am cutting some 1/2"(?) sticks of apple and pear wood today. I believe they have to be dried and also (maybe) run through the oven before they can gnaw them?

I've also seen that the whimzees - alligators and hedge hogs can be good, and maybe we'll buy one of each at the pet store before buying a bag to see if she likes those. I assume these will also help with managing tooth growth.

I also see recommendations around dandelion roots (might harvest a lot in the spring... they're prolific in our yard... the thought of buying them does turn my stomach ) and egg boxes, but do these do anything for the teeth?

Other teeth chew recommendations I might be missing?

As it relates to the use of cardboard/cardboard tubes/etc, and given all the talk about being super careful with what they're given and glues - how does that work? Don't a lot of cardboard items (like tubes) contain who-knows-what glues?

Thanks for the insight, Maz and Tulsi!

 

[Maz]

Ah yes it's difficult when hamsters only get up after children go to bed The key there is to get into a routine of feeding at about 6pm to 7pm maybe. And making a little bit of cage noise when feeding. The hamster gets used to waking up for feeding time and they soon get to expect it at that time - often the smell of the veg gets them up, but a little bit of cage noise helps as well. As there are no bars, there's no rattling. But you could maybe spin the wheel or be a little bit noisy putting a dish down with the veg on. I tend to put the veg on a small dish (eg saucer or jam jar lid) on a platform at the opposite end of the enclosure to where the hamster sleeps. They then walk the length of the enclosure to get it. Once you get into a routine of that, it's a good time to offer a tube to walk into on their way to or from getting the veg, and then you can have some out of cage time in the playpen.

Once they know feeding time is at that time each night, they start to wake for it anyway and expect it. I wouldn't offer the tube for out of cage time until you've had her two weeks, but you could start with the feeding time routine now. It may not happen immediately!

Yes any wood it's best to wash in very hot water and then bake. The hot water cleans and might kill any bug eggs, the baking finishes that off but also if the wood is wet, it basically steams rather than bakes.

You raise a good point about glues in cardboard tubes - it is not something that has ever caused an issue and people have been using toilet roll and kitchen roll inner tubes for years (maybe they don't have glue?) Pringles tubes are fine too - I tend to pull out the inner silver part, which is quite easy.

Cardboard egg boxes have no glue I believe. They may help a bit with teeth but the main thing is occupation and normal behaviours. Female syrians often like ripping them up/shredding them. Foraging and nesting instinct and it burns up some energy!

Most of my hamsters have ignored wood to chew on! Unless it has food stuck to it. Or unless it's something they're not supposed to chew (eg wooden stilts holding a house up). One of mine chewed threw one of the stilts because it was obviously in the way!

Most of them seem to love whimzees - I guess they smell nice. I like the mini toothbrushes because you can stick sunflower seeds in the bristles and they enjoy pulling them out.

These are also good. The hyacinth ball, you can stick pumpkin seeds under the folds of the ball so the hamster has fun trying to get those out. The seagrass ball I keep and unravel if needed, to use for hamster safe string to attach things with but you maybe don't need hamster safe string with a bar-less cage! So it can be used as well. The wicker one I find a bit sharp and scratchy.

Trio of balls

For different substrates for dig boxes, two or three are fine. If you have sand and cork granules that is good. Coco soil is another option. Check any soil doesn't get too damp or it can get mouldy. It's mainly just for variety of texture.

 

[ross1010]

Or unless it's something they're not supposed to chew (eg wooden stilts holding a house up). One of mine chewed threw one of the stilts because it was obviously in the way!

That's all great information - awesome! Very insightful... just soaking it up. We'll be doing some cage rattling and feeding time training, going forward

I read that smoking pellets (of acceptable woods) may be OK?

 

[Maz]

I'm not sure what you mean by smoking pellets?

 

[ross1010]

I'm not sure what you mean by smoking pellets?

For pellet smoking grills (link). The ones made for grills are just compressed wood of a given species. I saw someone mention these, but not sure how common their use was.

 

[Socks' Mum]

Amazon.co.uk

 

[Socks' Mum]

Hmm, they might have high resin content. I would stay with pet specific pellets.

 

[ross1010]

Hmm, they might have high resin content. I would stay with pet specific pellets.

Noted, though I think Applewood is a very low resin wood.

 

[Maz]

I wouldn't use those. Beech chips, cork and coco substrate are the ones usually used.

 

[Socks' Mum]

Yes, I think apple is OK picked off a tree. I would worry about anti fungals and preservatives in the commercial product though. It is a good idea, but I don't know how safe it would be

 

[Maz]

It is ok if from your tree, not sprayed with anything, and treated as per @Daisy's article