New rescue hamster... is this normal behavior?

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.

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.

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!

Maz said:

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.

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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

Tulsi said:

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!

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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!

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.

Maz said:

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!

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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?

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

Maz said:

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

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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.

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

Socks' Mum said:

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

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

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

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

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

Alright, we're now at about 11 days from adoption. I could use a little more guidance.

Penny (my daughter has now named the new hamster) is avoiding us now staying subterranean. She spends most of her time sleeping. I petted her above the surface around midnight a few days ago, but the other 2-3 times above the surface (and that's all I've seen her above this week), she ran off. She has burrows throughout the cage now. A few days ago, she was chewing the daylights out of the cage... not being aggressive, I pushed down part of the burrow in that section to try to get her to get out of her aggressive gnawing trance. Perhaps this is why she's avoiding us and it was a mistake. A day or two before, my daughter had a sleep-over, and they let her climb into a large cup with some food in it and attempted to pick her up, and she wasn't ready for that.

She pretty much sleeps most of the time or has her eyes shut most of the time, unless she comes above ground, which is very infrequent 6am-midnight. When I've seen them, her eyes seem fine and she doesn't appear to have anything dripping from her nose/ears/etc.

Any thoughts on this?

The cage really needs some cleaning at this point, and without her coming up, I'm not sure how to remove her while we do that. We also have no idea where she is peeing, but we do see poop and food in her 2 chamber hide (the day she finally discovered it, she moved in as her primary quarters and seems to love it, even though it's not dark).

At the back of my head, I'm wondering if we need to reduce the amount of subterranean burrow area, until she gets used to us and interacts more. I'm sure you all will have thoughts as to if this is a good or bad idea. I realize that would be stressful for her.

Here's what the cage looks like at the moment. Sprays, cork log, and digging substrates are in the mail!

It all sounds perfectly normal for early days - even after 11 days. Although it sounds like she has settled in if she's been chewing at the cage - ie ready for out of cage time! But is still being elusive.

Some people do reduce the bedding a bit in some areas to start with taming and socialisation. Do you know where she is sleeping? Her toiletting area will be near there.

You don't really need her out of the cage to spot clean the pee though - you'll just have to put a hand under the substrate and feel around until you find the damp pee area! And sometimes people can't actually find it! In a situaiton like that, if you can't smell it and can't find it - just wait a bit longer

Does she have fresh veg every day? One thing I do is put the veg on a separate dish at the opposite end of the enclosure to where she is sleeping. If you do feeding time at maybe 7 or 8pm, and make a bit of cage noise while doing it, she will get in the habit of waking up at feeding time and the smell of the veg tempts them out. When they have to cross the cage to get it, that can be a good time to offer a tube to walk into, for out of cage time - either on the way to the veg or on the way back.

Maz said:

It all sounds perfectly normal for early days - even after 11 days. Although it sounds like she has settled in if she's been chewing at the cage - ie ready for out of cage time! But is still being elusive.

Some people do reduce the bedding a bit in some areas to start with taming and socialisation. Do you know where she is sleeping? Her toiletting area will be near there.

You don't really need her out of the cage to spot clean the pee though - you'll just have to put a hand under the substrate and feel around until you find the damp pee area! And sometimes people can't actually find it! In a situaiton like that, if you can't smell it and can't find it - just wait a bit longer

Does she have fresh veg every day? One thing I do is put the veg on a separate dish at the opposite end of the enclosure to where she is sleeping. If you do feeding time at maybe 7 or 8pm, and make a bit of cage noise while doing it, she will get in the habit of waking up at feeding time and the smell of the veg tempts them out. When they have to cross the cage to get it, that can be a good time to offer a tube to walk into, for out of cage time - either on the way to the veg or on the way back.

Click to expand...

We have been making all kinds of cage noise when we go in to feed and water In recent days, she wakes then (but eyes closed), and puts her nose near the top of the 2-chamber at the front and snifs for a bit. Yesterday, she eventually came out with all the 'feeding noise' (about 20 mins later), but then scurried back when we approached the cage. However, usually she wakes, sniffs, and goes back to sleep.

Once she discovered the 2 chamber hide shown at the front, that's where she's been sleeping. Plenty of poop in both chambers. Before that, it was in a burrow below the multi-chamber, back right corner of the cage.

We have been giving a tiny piece of carrot/kale/etc most days, usually when we can feed her out of hand. We thought that might encourage more socialization, but maybe we need to put them out, regardless.

Since she currently has a full burrowing footprint beneath the surface. Should we reduce it on the left half of the cage, or even just leave the deep section below the multi-chamber?

I'm assuming the poop should be removed from her sleeping quarters this weekend?

It depends how much poop there is. The odd few poops lying around does no harm. They aren’t dirty or smelly - they’re like little hard seeds and they can actually eat them - and sometimes do. They have two stomachs and can redigest nutrients from their poops . Hard wiring for food shortages. Sometimes they hoard a few but usually when they start taking over on top of the substrate you can just spot clean them out. They can poop anywhere. There probably are more in her sleeping area but it might be a bit soon to disturb her sleeping area.

For veg you could try a small cube of cucumber - they love that and the smell might tempt her out.

She’s probably still a bit of a scared baby so I’d maybe wait until it’s about two weeks. They often start to act more confident by the two week point when they are fully adjusted to the enclosure. Any change now might set her back again.

Ah yes, she loves cucumber. It sounds like just a hamster ear sized piece of vegetable per day, once they're used to it?

Okay, we can keep waiting. Tuesday would be 2 weeks. So, to confirm I understand what you've said - don't worry about any cleaning yet (I had read about some white bacteria that can be detrimental to their health from absorptive surfaces, but I'm not sure how common that is?) and hold off until at least the 2 week mark to reduce her bedding level for some areas of the cage (if still not surfacing much)?

BTW, she seems comfortable in her her habitat, at least below ground

I haven't heard of any white bacteria. If something is damp and warm I guess white mould could form but I've never had an issue even with a load of soggy bedding at the bottom of the cage! Paper bedding does breathe.