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.
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.
. After all that effort getting the cage right!