Fancy's Diary

[fancyhamster]

Hello! I wanted to make a diary for my Fancy boy as some other people have for their hammies.

For Fancy's first update, here are pics of him enjoying his new food mix! Safe to say he's happy with the switch. I got Robin's gourmet food mix for Syrian hamsters to add more ingredients/variety to his diet for enrichment and obviously just for his wellbeing too. Mixed a small bit of his old food in there and will for a few days just so he doesn't feel stressed or overwhelmed. The food is a little pricey for the size, but it's not too bad and am going to see how long it lasts me because it likely will last a while!

(Sorry for the low quality pics haha I hope you can still see them, they are screenshots from a video that was already low quality. )


(He's holding that piece of food like, "OMG dad where has this food been all my life!!!" )

 

[Maz]

That’s great Fancy has his own diary . I’m looking forward to following his journey and seeing more photos.

The ones above have a nice, artistic look to them

 

[fancyhamster]

Thank you! I'm excited to share more. And thank you for that! Fancy says thank you too

 

[fancyhamster]

Safe to say Fancy is enjoying his new sprays! I was worried he would like them too much haha, but he doesn't seem to be going thru them too fast. Working hard on his new cage, but I am not much of a builder and there's a lot of intricate things to do/fix and it takes a lot of time Slowly trying to introduce new things/enrichment over time that will be in his new cage so that he feels more comfortable with the switch too, like the new sprays for example.

Hard to get a picture of this guy, always on the move

 

[Maz]

Hello Fancy Enjoy your sprays.

 

[fancyhamster]

Hello everyone. I'm sorry for the inactivity, life is life-ing right now haha! But Fancy is doing great. He loves all his new stuff! Still working on the set-up, the zipties are worrying me lol that Fancy will try to chew them apart but I got very strong ones and have a camera. I hope everyone is doing well!

 

[Maz]

Life has a habit of doing that I know the feeling! Whereabouts are the zip ties? If it helps I've never had a hamster try to chew zip ties! If they are pulled tight and there is only the small part showing inside I'm not sure they actually are aware of them being something to chew, when there are more interesting things to chew

 

[fancyhamster]

Yes it sure does!! And the majority of the zipties are on the lid of the bin cage holding the chicken wire in place. There are some on three of the sides too that are for holding the chicken wire, but they're all towards the top where the lid is. And that's good to know! Hopefully Fancy will feel similarly especially with all his new things I'll introduce over time still!

I will upload a picture of what the bin cage looks like so far with zipties today or tomorrow and maybe it'd be easier to tell! I planned to anyway to make sure it looked okay before I continue. Thank you for your help!

 

[Maz]

Others also use zip ties to attach the mesh to the lid of a bin cage and I've never heard of any issues of them being chewed They will be pulled tight on the inside. Some people put a border of decorative masking tape (on the outside only) to cover the edges and where the zip ties have been snipped on top. So as long as they are pulled tight and fastened on the outside/top it shouldn't be an issue

 

[fancyhamster]

Others also use zip ties to attach the mesh to the lid of a bin cage and I've never heard of any issues of them being chewed They will be pulled tight on the inside. Some people put a border of decorative masking tape (on the outside only) to cover the edges and where the zip ties have been snipped on top. So as long as they are pulled tight and fastened on the outside/top it shouldn't be an issue

Thank you for this tip! This made me feel a lot better haha.

 

[fancyhamster]

Hi everyone. So sorry I have been so inactive. I plan to try and be more active coming up here soon, this is my first week of my junior year in college so lots of preparing and cleaning, on top of other things going on in my life that have kept me very busy. But rest assured Fancy has been doing pretty good. I think my room is still too hot, I got a fan that I can turn on outside his cage but I don't know if it's helpful or if it's just blowing hot air around. I am working on cleaning out our other guest room/storage room so I can move him in there because it gets colder/better temp. I do not own the house I live in though so I am not really supposed to mess with the temp in the house or move it below 73 degrees Fahrenheit (~23 degrees Celsius). But I hope everyone and their hammies have been doing great!

 

[fancyhamster]

Oh, also, I did end up getting some mugs to put in the fridge and help cool him off and he seems to like them a lot! Thank you guys for that tip.

 

[Socks' Mum]

23C should be OK for a hammy. If you have a cross breeze, that can help to cool down the room. Also if it isn't too humid, putting a damp towel in front of a fan or in a breeze can help. Good luck with college, I hope all goes well

 

[Maz]

It sounds like he’s doing great with the mugs and the fan . There is another aspect which is hamsters like being warm- not too hot obviously but I find they are visibly happier and want to be out more in warm temperatures - they hide away more in winter as it gets colder. So I wouldn’t worry too much - temperatures of 30 degrees would be worrying but he sounds fine . I would leave him where he is - moving the cage to another room can stress them out.