Advice for bonding (more) with our hamster?

dwarfhamstersmom

dwarfhamstersmom

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Hi!

Our dwarf hamster will be almost 3 months she's living with us (and she's 4-5 months old), from the very first day she allowed us to pet her, she would eat from our hand and get on it so we can lift her and pick her up from the cage, she licks our fingers inside her cage, she's been a really good girl when she had to take some medicine, she never had screamed, hissed or showed her teeth at us, most of the times if she's awake when we go to her room and listens to our voice or saying her name she would come out her hideout or underneath the bedding... But once she's out of the cage in our hands, running on the sofa (under our supervision) or on a table, floor, etc (some kind of playpen time) she won't eat her favourite treats or any kind of seed, fruit or veggetable -food which she usually devours in her cage and she's the kind of hamster she's usually hungry-
We think she's not bonded completely with us, any advice so she feels confortable enough to eat out of her cage? We would like her to trust in us entirely.

Thanks!
 
Maybe she just enjoys being out and isn't so interested in food when out :) Have you tried having a sort of dig box out of the cage with treats in it? I used an old small amazon box with shredded cardboard in and scattered some treats in there and the odd one sinks down, and my hamsters used to like foraging for them in there. They do behave differently out of the cage than in it sometimes.

Also if you have a playpen area, you could sit in it with the hamster and the hamster can then run all over you and maybe some handling or stroking at the same time.
 
Maz said:
Maybe she just enjoys being out and isn't so interested in food when out :) Have you tried having a sort of dig box out of the cage with treats in it? I used an old small amazon box with shredded cardboard in and scattered some treats in there and the odd one sinks down, and my hamsters used to like foraging for them in there. They do behave differently out of the cage than in it sometimes.

Also if you have a playpen area, you could sit in it with the hamster and the hamster can then run all over you and maybe some handling or stroking at the same time.
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So interesting! So it’s just a normal “change of behaviour” or she is afraid of us? We actually “don’t care” about if she eats or not outside the cage, we just want her to trust us more and feel as safe with us in our hands or floor as in her cage 🥺 Maybe that’s impossible??
 
She seems to be a friendly little hammy. I think if dwarf hamsters are unhappy, they let you know, quite often by nipping or biting, so you are doing really well. I think being out in the open, rather than in her cage, might make her more wary, especially during the day. Some of her wild instincts remain and keep her on the lookout for hawks and other predators. She might eat more easily in the evening, under the cover of darkness.
 
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It may be she is just more interested in doing other things when out of the cage. Or she might even feel a bit nervous out of the cage. Does she not like being handled out of the cage then? Where do you have her out of the cage?
 
Maz said:
It may be she is just more interested in doing other things when out of the cage. Or she might even feel a bit nervous out of the cage. Does she not like being handled out of the cage then? Where do you have her out of the cage?
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Socks Mum said:
She seems to be a friendly little hammy. I think if dwarf hamsters are unhappy, they let you know, quite often by nipping or biting, so you are doing really well. I think being out in the open, rather than in her cage, might make her more wary, especially during the day. Some of her wild instincts remain and keep her on the lookout for hawks and other predators. She might eat more easily in the evening, under the cover of darkness.
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Well she actually nipped or bit sometimes but just when we were giving food to her and i HOPE she just got confused 😂 (it didn’t hurt, when I was a child and my hamsters didn’t have much floor space and enrichment they bit much more, hissed, screamed…)

We’ll try to hold her at night and giving her food outside the cage but in the darkness, thanks☺️
 
Do you have a playpen or hamsterproofed area she could run around in? Or do you just have her on the sofa?
 
Maz said:
It may be she is just more interested in doing other things when out of the cage. Or she might even feel a bit nervous out of the cage. Does she not like being handled out of the cage then? Where do you have her out of the cage?
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We actually don’t really know because when we put our hands inside the cage she sometimes walk there and doesn’t try to jump when we slowly lift her. But it’s true she starts moving in our hand and runs everywhere in her room (where the cage is) or in the sofa for example. She doesn’t stay still in our hands or almost slept like some hamsters do in instagram reels. Actually, we have never been worried about that since we’d always thought she’s just very young and active. But maybe she doesn’t like to be held or outside the cage as much as we think🥲
 
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Maz said:
Do you have a playpen or hamsterproofed area she could run around in? Or do you just have her on the sofa?
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We have a small one for dogs or babies (that’s what the amazon link said) but we don’t put her always there if we hold her for few minutes, only when we make a “big” cage cleaning, there we put some wooden items and if she can hide in them she ate some seeds. But not in our hands or in an “open space”.
 
I think most hamsters like to run around and be active out of the cage. Those intagram reels must just catch them when they're sleepy!
 
I think it's just time and routine. How often does she come out of the cage? Daily?
 
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