Introducing Moka!

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-25T11:32:26+0000

Hello!
I would like to introduce you to Moka! As you can see, she is a beautiful Syrian hamster (it's funny that I have a Syrian hamster with my nickname lol). She’s just a 2 or 3 months baby and already weights 75 grams.

As some of you may have read in Maia's posts, our other hamster, after a long time without knowing any associations or people dedicated to finding truly responsible families to help these unlucky hamsters in need of a home in Barcelona... Well, one day we found a great group of people, some of whom collaborate with associations, and on my social media I kept seeing hamsters looking for homes.
We fell in love with Moka and... here she is!

She lives in a Bucatstate 3.0, the large one. She’s using some of Maia’s stuff (washed before) and Maia got new stuff.

We don't have much experience with Syrian hamsters. Moka is both a little skittish and curious, so she already eats out of our hands (she's been home for three days) but she still doesn't climb up completely and when you stroke her she ‘crouches down’. She also tries to jump if we use a “taxi-mug” to take her out of the enclosure.
Oh, and she’s a great digger and already made some tunnels!

We know that although our previous hamsters were almost domesticated from home, this is usually a long process, so we are arming ourselves with patience and hope that Moka will soon form a strong bond with us!

Maz · 2025-11-25T16:20:01+0000

Ooh wonderful news

They will both keep you really busy ha ha

It's great she already eats out of your hand. Do you know how old she is? Yes Syrians will jump out of anything - can't be trusted basically! However tame they are. Even a very tame one can suddenly have a moment where they decided to jump. Some kind of enclosed taxi works best

Although I use a rat tube - hamster walks in and I carry it with one end over my stomach and my hand over the other end. You can't carry it too far like that as the hamster will push hard against your hand!

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-25T17:20:38+0000

Maz said:
Ooh wonderful news They will both keep you really busy ha ha It's great she already eats out of your hand. Do you know how old she is? Yes Syrians will jump out of anything - can't be trusted basically! However tame they are. Even a very tame one can suddenly have a moment where they decided to jump. Some kind of enclosed taxi works best Although I use a rat tube - hamster walks in and I carry it with one end over my stomach and my hand over the other end. You can't carry it too far like that as the hamster will push hard against your hand!

Hahahah yes! She’s around 2 months. We don’t know sometimes the hamsters age exactly when they came from irresponsable breeding…

Home gets lots of fun at night

Omg I thought she jumped just because she’s actually a bit scared. We’ll keep that in mind, any advice for taming beside giving her lots of treats?

Maz · 2025-11-25T18:04:21+0000

Just the usual from the taming guide

Personally I think Syrians can be a bit more sensitive than dwarf hamsters (emotionally) but their personalities vary as well. Sensitive as in they seem a bit more cautious at times or nervous of scary things. Noises etc - but they soon get used to familiar noises.

It's usually just time and patience - some are much quicker to be handleable than others. I start when out of cage time starts, by offering hamster food on the palm of my hand and wait till they get used to that and eventually put a paw on your hand or sit on it, then moving onto raising that hand a bit now and then and stroking them on the back with one finger (just occasionally), then move onto handling. Before that you can just offer treats in the cage yes

And you could try the tissue trick as well. Some sheets of toilet paper up a sleeve or down a bra for a while - I leave them about half an hour- then tear them into strips and put that pile of paper strips near where she's nesting. She'll pouch and take them and have your scent in her sleeping area.

Plus just keep talking to her of course - gets her familiar with your voice and presence. I think they really respond to voice a lot.

Can't wait to find out what sort of personality she is

It can also be interesting to keep a bit of a diary and see if she has different behaviours on different days (they come on heat every 4 days and can get a bit maverick).

Hamster Haven · 2025-11-25T20:08:15+0000

How exciting! Our Oaky jumped out of my hands once (she tried other times, but I'm usually very careful). I'd taken too long to transport her and probably gotten a little too complacent about how calm she was. I think she got impatient and launched herself to get down and crawl around. I was so scared, but she was okay, and of course I was much more careful in the future. When I use her "taxi", I sometimes put a protective hand around the opening and just move it with her so she feels "blocked' from jumping attempts. She took a few months to really calm down to human interaction. She was very skittish about hands at first, but now she is super comfortable with being handled, and it sort of happened naturally over time as she saw that we were never aggressive with her but only purveyors of food and further adventure out side of the cage. Now she will crawl into my hand fully with the hope of being taken out to explore. Hopefully you will have similar fun with Moka!

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-26T08:41:58+0000

Maz said:
Just the usual from the taming guide Personally I think Syrians can be a bit more sensitive than dwarf hamsters (emotionally) but their personalities vary as well. Sensitive as in they seem a bit more cautious at times or nervous of scary things. Noises etc - but they soon get used to familiar noises.

It's usually just time and patience - some are much quicker to be handleable than others. I start when out of cage time starts, by offering hamster food on the palm of my hand and wait till they get used to that and eventually put a paw on your hand or sit on it, then moving onto raising that hand a bit now and then and stroking them on the back with one finger (just occasionally), then move onto handling. Before that you can just offer treats in the cage yes And you could try the tissue trick as well. Some sheets of toilet paper up a sleeve or down a bra for a while - I leave them about half an hour- then tear them into strips and put that pile of paper strips near where she's nesting. She'll pouch and take them and have your scent in her sleeping area.

Plus just keep talking to her of course - gets her familiar with your voice and presence. I think they really respond to voice a lot.

Can't wait to find out what sort of personality she is It can also be interesting to keep a bit of a diary and see if she has different behaviours on different days (they come on heat every 4 days and can get a bit maverick).

Thank you for all the advice. And yes! We feel she’s much more sensitive than our other dwarfs! The first day we worried because she is very very still at the beginning when she realises we’re there.

And yes, I’ll make a diary of her as well!

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-26T08:43:50+0000

Hamster Haven said:
How exciting! Our Oaky jumped out of my hands once (she tried other times, but I'm usually very careful). I'd taken too long to transport her and probably gotten a little too complacent about how calm she was. I think she got impatient and launched herself to get down and crawl around. I was so scared, but she was okay, and of course I was much more careful in the future. When I use her "taxi", I sometimes put a protective hand around the opening and just move it with her so she feels "blocked' from jumping attempts. She took a few months to really calm down to human interaction. She was very skittish about hands at first, but now she is super comfortable with being handled, and it sort of happened naturally over time as she saw that we were never aggressive with her but only purveyors of food and further adventure out side of the cage. Now she will crawl into my hand fully with the hope of being taken out to explore. Hopefully you will have similar fun with Moka!

Ohhh thank you

And wow, few months to be confortable with being handled! We’re so used to dwarf which it took just few days, but we’ll have patience!

Maz · 2025-11-26T14:16:53+0000

It varies

Some can take a few months, some a few weeks, and some be instantly handleable

So it does vary a lot depending on their individual personality and also their previous experience

Having said that though, an 8 week old Syrian is still a baby really (generally they don't get separated from siblings and rehomed until 6 weeks old). So baby syrians can be quite scared. So it can take a few weeks at least, yes, and by that time they are that little bit older and have got used to their new environment.

I usually give them a two weeks before attempting to do out of cage time - unless they show very keen to get out of the cage and will walk into a taxi. Or sometimes longer than two weeks. But talking to them and offering treats during that time helps. So they feel safe and build confidence.

They really are like little children! Cheeky, naughty, scared, overdoing things sometimes. Syrians can also keep growing until they're about 9 momths old. Technically they are full sized at around 12 weeks old but they can still keep growing a bit.

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-26T16:56:07+0000

Maz said:
It varies Some can take a few months, some a few weeks, and some be instantly handleable So it does vary a lot depending on their individual personality and also their previous experience Having said that though, an 8 week old Syrian is still a baby really (generally they don't get separated from siblings and rehomed until 6 weeks old). So baby syrians can be quite scared. So it can take a few weeks at least, yes, and by that time they are that little bit older and have got used to their new environment.

I usually give them a two weeks before attempting to do out of cage time - unless they show very keen to get out of the cage and will walk into a taxi. Or sometimes longer than two weeks. But talking to them and offering treats during that time helps. So they feel safe and build confidence.

They really are like little children! Cheeky, naughty, scared, overdoing things sometimes. Syrians can also keep growing until they're about 9 momths old. Technically they are full sized at around 12 weeks old but they can still keep growing a bit.

Omg we took her out of the cage just to weight her and to see if she was more comfortable outside but no hahaha

She had a good past in her host house, the girl who had her could stroke her and she ate from her hand too!

Okay so we’ll be patient with her and waiting until she gets older, we can’t wait to see how big she will be!!

Maz · 2025-11-26T17:05:51+0000

How long have you had her now? If she was fairly tame before, that's good, but she needs to adjust to new people, new enclosure, new environment etc, and that usually takes a couple of weeks. But also sometimes taming has to start all over again with new people - I've found that. I think they become tame with a trusted person sometimes. So it's all about trust building really

dwarfhamstermom · 2025-11-26T20:49:57+0000

Maz said:
How long have you had her now? If she was fairly tame before, that's good, but she needs to adjust to new people, new enclosure, new environment etc, and that usually takes a couple of weeks. But also sometimes taming has to start all over again with new people - I've found that. I think they become tame with a trusted person sometimes. So it's all about trust building really

It’s just her 4th day today… hahahaha I know it’s very early for her to trust us, but we haven’t seen any improvement in these days, she takes food from our hands but that’s all… She allows us to stroke her but she doesn’t like it at all and looks scared

Maz · 2025-11-26T21:51:46+0000

She will be scared. The usual advice is to leave them alone for the first few days while they settle into the enclosure and find their own habits and scent mark everything and decide where to sleep. During that time it's best just to talk to her through the enclosure. I would give her another 2 or 3 days undisturbed now, to sort of start again, and just talk to her. Then you could move on to offering her the occasional treat. It can take a good 10 days to 2 weeks for them to start looking confident in their enclosure. She won't feel secure out of the enclosure until she's confident in it probably

That's not a hard and fast rule but they do need a few days to adjust. A bit of space to sort themselves out. Then you can gauge how she is.

Introducing Moka!

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