Syrian hamster cage gnawing and not using wheel

It's looking good! The shelf can be awkward with the long ladder for fitting things in - but it is a shelf. And a shelf gives overhead cover as well as somewhere to put a food bowl or the odd toy. It depends whether the shoebox house and wheel would fit in comfortable with the shelf there. If you take it out though it would feel very exposed from above. And buying new shelves costs money!

I know one owner who had a shoebox house partially under the shelf and partially not under it (so still easy enough to take the roof off). Having said that, if you have the shoebox house at the opposite end to the shelf it won;t seem so open - if the wheel will still fit in!

Ideally the wheel and house would be the same end/location as before but that might not be possible with the shelf in.

I think if not wanting to spend a fortune on extra items I would leave the shelf.

I think the old substrate is going to be moved over at moving time so that will add more as well :-)

I think I would try leaving the shelf and once you've added the house and wheel and the existing floor items there will be more at floor level.

I used to put a blanket over the roof at first until they adjust, so they don't feel too overwhelmed by the extra space above.
 
If the shelf is where it is on the photo, I would probably have the wheel back left and the house at the left end, pointing in towards the middle of the cage. Then add an extra shelf over the house with the sputnik hanging next to that.

Then you only have 1 shelf and a sputnik to buy. Pringles tubes can be used to make floor tunnel toys, or tied to the bars to lead from say a house roof to the shelf. You can poke holes in cardboard tubes easily so they're easy to tie to bars. I use either plastic cable ties or sisal string to tie things to the bars (not normal cotton string though).
 
I think the shelf looks good where it is on that photo - maybe depends if you're left handed or right handed! But the other back corner is probably fine as well.

Sometimes you can't put things exactly where they were before - the important thing is moving all the old substrate across, and the nest and hoard inside the house - so it smells familiar.
 
Or - you could remove the green shelf - put cardboard inside the bars at one end right to the top - and have really deep substrate at that end, with a smaller shelf over it and the odd tunnel sticking out of the deep substrate.

This video shows that option! It uses a lot of substrate though

 
My set up is more conventional - House one end, shelf the other end, wheel in the middle - small shelf over house with sputnik next to it.

This is her original video using different shelves. Those wood trixie shelves cost about £10

 
elusive said:
Putting the shelf in a position that allows for a familiar kind of layout is a good idea.
A big shoebox house would definitely be good as would replacing the plastic ramp (they can struggle a bit with those).
You could put a sand bath or another hide on the shelf.
I would put more substrate in too, really ram it in up to the top of the base of the cage & compact it down just a bit so it holds burrows better.
For hanging toys I think with that height the rat sputniks would be good.
You will need more floor items too to really keep her busy, tubes, cork tunnels, even cardboard like pringle tubes can be used just so she has plenty to explore & hideout in, more places to hide food & treats too to help keep her occupied.
Click to expand...
This is not the final set up - I will move over all her existing toys plus all of her substrate from the existing cage as recommended by Maz. This is why it’s not full yet. So this is just for her to explore and get to know now, then tomorrow I will move everything over.
 
I think she will enjoy exploring it! I found the green shelf pretty huge. And the ladder. The only main issue is getting a house and wheel to fit in due to the shape of the shelf. I already had a long wood shelf cut to size to fit that cage, from a previous set up/previous hamster. I found it more space saving - but - there is nothing wrong with the green shelf if you can fit everything else in ok. Apart from the holes round the edges of it - I didn't like those in case a toe got caught. Never heard of that happening to anyone yet so it's maybe me being over cautious! On the video above, Cosmic hamsters stuffs paper in the holes for that reason.

You can set it up how you choose really - the main thing is that the finished result has plenty of stuff in to keep her occupied.
 
Hi Doro, I brought a couple of these little balls from P@H and have them hanging in my cage. I wedge seeds and treats around the outside and Hams really enjoys playing with them.

3E542A1B-60FB-42DA-B15F-8FE4CE3BF833.jpegBA2A033B-183D-43FA-A678-94FB06B63871.jpeg

We also have a Sputnik which you can see in the first photo. He doesn’t use it lots but it’s a fun space to hide food in for foraging and gives another roaming level to his cage.
 
Last edited:
I just have the trio of Rosewood natural ones. The coloured ones look fun.
 
So Marmalade moved into her new cage yesterday after exploring it very happily the day before. But now the gnawing is back and it seems more persistent again and worse than before. She already found several new favourite gnawing spots and I think even if I use the plexiglass sheets (forgot what they’re called) to cover everything at the bottom she will move up to the shelves and do it there (she already did once), she even tried to reach the roof for gnawing. I’m at the end of my tether TBH. I’m not even the biggest pet person, the hamster belongs to the kids. I spent more money on this already than I can really afford and so much energy and time as well. I feel so disheartened. 😢 maybe I’m just too impatient and need to wait for her to settle into her new cage? But my feeling is that the habit is so engrained now that she won’t stop. I still don’t think she uses the wheel - she sits in there to eat and there’s food in it most of the time which would keep her from using it properly, I think.
 
Female Syrians with this kind of behaviour can be really challenging but try not to get too disheartened just yet. She may well need more time to settle in to the new cage. If she has favourite spots for bar chewing you could try putting cardboard there, she will chew that & might still get to the bars quite quickly but it will be a bit of a distraction.
Are you scatter feeding or using a bowl? If she has to hunt for food & has lots of challenging places to find treats that will help to keep her from chewing the bars.
It can be a habit as much as anything else but with more to occupy her elsewhere it should still be possible to break the habit.
What do you do if she’s bar chewing? It’s probably best to ignore it as much as possible so she doesn’t get an attention reward for the behaviour & try paying her more attention, feeding or getting her out for out of cage time when she’s not chewing if that’s possible.
I wouldn’t worry about the food in the wheel, that won’t stop her using it, I’ve had hams run in the wheel with a whole walnut or whimzee in there without it bothering them one bit!
I’m sure the others will have more advice too.
 
Thanks so much - I think I just needed some words of encouragement ❤️ I’m scatter feeding. She loves chewing cardboard so have tried to put quite a lot of things in the cage but maybe need more. I put a cardboard box with sand on top of one of the shelves and when she explored the cage (before moving in) she spent ages chewing through the bottom - until she had managed to bite a hole into the side of it to slip through and then she lost interest. She also chewed through the eggbox I had put in. The tissue box is of less interest, maybe because it’s thinner cardboard. Should I maybe replace the box on the shelf with a new one? Am rapidly moving through my existing stock of cardboard though - never thought this is possible in the age of Amazon 😂
 
This is the cage set up and one of the pics shows the cardboard box on top of the shelf she spent ages chewing. Not sure whether to replace it - maybe she chewed it up and threw the bits into the sand on purpose? But more cardboard might seem a good idea…
 
This is the amount of food she stores in the wheel
 
I hadn’t thought it possible to get through all those Amazon boxes until now 😆
I would change over the boxes or cardboard if she’s enjoying chewing them.
You could maybe try hanging some of those treat ball things to the bars too to see if that would distract her from the bars.
I didn’t think to ask before but does she have whimzees, not sure if they’ve been mentioned? Almost all hams love to chew those.
 
Finally some pics of Marmalade herself! 😍
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top