Taming a shy hamster

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Ana Rebeca

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Hello! I am new here and I actually joined this forum because I have a new hamster and I am quite confused about him.

I have had him for two weeks now and I've been trying to tame him. He always seemed a little shy, but ever since i made him a multi-chamber hideout he won't leave it unless it's dark in the room and he is alone. During the day he does come out for short trips to drink water and then scurries back in, seeming a little scared.

I have been waiting for him in semi-darkness to come out, but when I am there he does not run in the wheel or explore, he kind of just sniffs around a little and then lays down in a corner. I know that he does run in the wheel when I am not there, and he does eat his food from all around the cage, so he probably is just waiting for me to go away.

When he did come out, I tried to offer him treats from my hand and after a while he started to accept them. Sometimes he eats them next to my hand, other times he takes them and runs back into his hideout. Although he loves the treats, he doesn't really seem to be motivated to come out just for treats. And also, even tho he does take treats from my hand, there are times where seeing a hand will send him running and hiding for hours. I always try to speak gently to him and he knows when I'm there, so I don't know why he gets spooked by the hand still.

If he doesn't get spooked, after he gets a few treats he still goes back and waits for me to go away.

Is there any chance he could become more social, or is he just going to be like this? I know some hamster just don't like interacting with us, and if that is the case, I feel really bad for bothering him so much, but I don't want to give up if there is any chance that he is just adapting still.

Any ideas?
 
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Hello and welcome to the forum.

What species of hamster do you have and how old is he?

Two weeks is a short time. It can take hamsters that long or longer just to settle into their new home. It is very early days.
 
Hello! He is a syrian and should be about 8 weeks old now.

I will be patient then. :D
Would it be better for him if I only come around in the evening to try to give him treats and completely leave him alone for the rest of the day/night? I don't want to make things more stressful for him.
 
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Hello & welcome to the forum.

It can take them some time to settle & it’s not unusual for them to still be nervous after a couple of weeks.
What’s his set up like, does he have enough in the way of hides, tubes & general cover to move around without feeling to exposed? Having a set up that helps them feel secure when out is the first step. If you have a photo of yours we might be able to make some suggestions to help.
Have you done any cleaning yet? It’s best to keep cleaning to a minimum at first & not disturb anything in the cage, just a little spot cleaning if you know where his pee spot is.
Just talking to him gently without disturbing him at first is fine, it may be that you started offering treats a little early on before he felt safe coming out.
Try not to worry too much & go at his pace.
If he comes out in the evening you may be able to get into a routine of offering some treats then, maybe just put some down for him at first then go back to putting your hand in with the treats if he gets a bit more comfortable with that.
I would stick to that time & if he comes out at other times for now just leave him be to do what he wants to do until he’s a bit more confident.
He’s still very young but his confidence will grow with time.
 
There’s an article here that might help too.

www.thehamsterforum.com

How to tame a hamster

Hand taming a hamster can make life with your hamster very rewarding. Suddenly they will sit on you to be stroked or even go to sleep on you, and will be very easy to handle. It can take a bit of time and patience initially but our tips for...
www.thehamsterforum.com www.thehamsterforum.com
 
elusive said:
Hello & welcome to the forum.

It can take them some time to settle & it’s not unusual for them to still be nervous after a couple of weeks.
What’s his set up like, does he have enough in the way of hides, tubes & general cover to move around without feeling to exposed? Having a set up that helps them feel secure when out is the first step. If you have a photo of yours we might be able to make some suggestions to help.
Have you done any cleaning yet? It’s best to keep cleaning to a minimum at first & not disturb anything in the cage, just a little spot cleaning if you know where his pee spot is.
Just talking to him gently without disturbing him at first is fine, it may be that you started offering treats a little early on before he felt safe coming out.
Try not to worry too much & go at his pace.
If he comes out in the evening you may be able to get into a routine of offering some treats then, maybe just put some down for him at first then go back to putting your hand in with the treats if he gets a bit more comfortable with that.
I would stick to that time & if he comes out at other times for now just leave him be to do what he wants to do until he’s a bit more confident.
He’s still very young but his confidence will grow with time.
Click to expand...
Here it is. I think it is a bit small, but it's hard to find good cages where I live, so I will try to diy one for him in the future.
Considering what you said I guess I could also add some more things he can hide under. I want to make the section with more bedding a little deeper but I am waiting for him to get more comfortable so I can change things without scaring him. He started burrowing there in the beginning but now since I made the cardboard hideout he only sleeps there.

Thank you so much for the advice!
 

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Beryl said:
Hello and welcome to the forum.

What species of hamster do you have and how old is he?

Two weeks is a short time. It can take hamsters that long or longer just to settle into their new home. It is very early days.
Click to expand...
Hello! He is a syrian and should be about 8 weeks old now.

I will be patient then. :D
Would it be better for him if I only come around in the evening to try to give him treats and completely leave him alone for the rest of the day/night? I don't want to make things more stressful for him.
 
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Reactions: Maz
Hello and Welcome :-) Taro is beautiful! And he clearly enjoys his sprays. As the others have said, it can take them a good two weeks to settle into a cage and a new environment and he is only a baby still :-) So they can get scared easily. During that first two weeks they work out where they want to build a nest and hoard, and they scent mark everything in the cage, so it smells familiar. Partly claiming it as their territory and partly to help find their way around - they don't see that well and can follow their scent trails to find things.

So the usual advice is not to clean out during that two weeks. Except spot clean the pee area maybe once a week (if you can find it!) They will sometimes choose a corner of the cage as a toilet or sometimes, if they have a large house, do it in a corner of the house (or a room of the house if it's a multiroom house). But generally you don't disturb anything while they're settling in.

You are doing all the right things and it is big progress that he is taking treats from you, as many hamsters just don't like a hand in their cage but can be completely different out of the cage.

Usually after two weeks they have built up confidence and feel more at home and start enjoying their cage and being out a bit more.

The other thing you can do is feed at a set time of day, eg early evening around 6pm or 7pm. and make a bit of cage noise while you're doing it. If you put a bit of fresh veg out at that time too, they get in the habit of waking at feeding time (they can smell it and also look forward to it each day). That can be the time to get them out for some out of cage hand taming. They will often just walk into a tube if you put it in front of them, or it has a smelly treat at one end, and then you can lift them out in the tube.

Most of this is in the taming article linked above :) . With veg, you want to introduce it gradually over a couple of weeks - if he hasn't had it before. So every 3 days, then every 2 days then every day. So their stomachs adjust to it.

Which country are you in by the way? It looks like the bucatstate perspex tank is it? It's probably best not to adjust anything in the cage just yet, until he's more settled, but at some point a few tweaks might help. Or a cage upgrade could help at some point, if possible.
 
Taro looks really lovely.

It is better for them to have deeper substrate from the start, being able to burrow will help to make him feel safe, really you want to make it as deep as you can over the whole base of the cage, as long as you have enough height for the wheel on top.
The ladder looks quite steep as well.
I think if you have one level of deeper substrate it’s easy to add hides & tunnels rather than trying to fit things onto different levels.
It is a bit open so see what you can do to add extra things in for him.
They really like things like cork tunnels (the half tube rather than whole tube) & coconut hides but it if you can’t get things like that you can make hides out of cardboard.
I think if a cage set up is working for them it’s better not to tweak things until they’ve settled in but if a change will make them feel more secure & settle better, also maybe make the cage a little safer I would go ahead & do that.
 
Also, looking at the set up again. The dig boxes in the lower part might encourage him to hide away more. It's difficult to fit a wheel in if the cage has limited height so I can see you've gone for a deeper substrate end and a shallower substrate end.

They do like the multiroom houses as they're dark inside and they like to have somewhere dark to go. But he will come out independently when he's feeling more confident (and if tempted out by food early evening!).

Posted at the same time as Elusive!
 
Also I can't tell if it's a 20" wheel or a 28cm wheel, but it looks like it may be the 20cm one? That size is fine initially but they do need a larger 28cm one when they start to grow and that might mean the need for a cage upgrade, to fit one in. It's very difficult when you want to fit more in - I had the same issue with my robos cage set up recently. I wanted to fit a lot more in but there wasn't the space to do so and he is in a 100cm x 50cm cage - but I have some large items in there. If one of the dig boxes has sand in and the other has a different substrate, you could maybe lose the one nearest the edge of the cage and just scatter the other substrate. Add a few treats to it for him to forage for so he doesn't get upset by losing the box! It will give him a bit more space to roam around in that area :)

Most cages are not ideal to set up! They can be too tall or not tall enough to achieve everything.
 
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One thing you could do as well maybe, is instead of having a divider with two distinct levels half way. Have the substrate sloping down from the deep end to just before the wheel.

Personally, as you've only had him two weeks, I would give him a bit more time to feel confident and have a bit of taming before changing much though.
 
Maz said:
Hello and Welcome :) Taro is beautiful! And he clearly enjoys his sprays. As the others have said, it can take them a good two weeks to settle into a cage and a new environment and he is only a baby still :) So they can get scared easily. During that first two weeks they work out where they want to build a nest and hoard, and they scent mark everything in the cage, so it smells familiar. Partly claiming it as their territory and partly to help find their way around - they don't see that well and can follow their scent trails to find things.

So the usual advice is not to clean out during that two weeks. Except spot clean the pee area maybe once a week (if you can find it!) They will sometimes choose a corner of the cage as a toilet or sometimes, if they have a large house, do it in a corner of the house (or a room of the house if it's a multiroom house). But generally you don't disturb anything while they're settling in.

You are doing all the right things and it is big progress that he is taking treats from you, as many hamsters just don't like a hand in their cage but can be completely different out of the cage.

Usually after two weeks they have built up confidence and feel more at home and start enjoying their cage and being out a bit more.

The other thing you can do is feed at a set time of day, eg early evening around 6pm or 7pm. and make a bit of cage noise while you're doing it. If you put a bit of fresh veg out at that time too, they get in the habit of waking at feeding time (they can smell it and also look forward to it each day). That can be the time to get them out for some out of cage hand taming. They will often just walk into a tube if you put it in front of them, or it has a smelly treat at one end, and then you can lift them out in the tube.

Most of this is in the taming article linked above :) . With veg, you want to introduce it gradually over a couple of weeks - if he hasn't had it before. So every 3 days, then every 2 days then every day. So their stomachs adjust to it.

Which country are you in by the way? It looks like the bucatstate perspex tank is it? It's probably best not to adjust anything in the cage just yet, until he's more settled, but at some point a few tweaks might help. Or a cage upgrade could help at some point, if possible.
Click to expand...
I am from Romania and probably the best way to get a suitable enclosure for him would be to order a terrarium, but those are quite expensive. This one is some ferplast cage, it doesn't specify the model on it tho. It has about 1000 sq. cm. so I will definitely have to upgrade it at some point.

I haven't cleaned it yet and lucky for me, he does seem to use his sand bath to pee so I should be able to spot clean easily for now.

Thank you a lot for the advice! 😊
 
Ana Rebeca said:
I am from Romania and probably the best way to get a suitable enclosure for him would be to order a terrarium, but those are quite expensive. This one is some ferplast cage, it doesn't specify the model on it tho. It has about 1000 sq. cm. so I will definitely have to upgrade it at some point.

I haven't cleaned it yet and lucky for me, he does seem to use his sand bath to pee so I should be able to spot clean easily for now.

Thank you a lot for the advice! 😊
Click to expand...
It can be very difficult to get cages in some countries, but you've made a very nice set up for him in there :)
 
It might be a Ferplast mini duna then if it's about 1000 square cms and that is very small for a Syrian, but I can see you've given him enrichment and made the set up nice for him. For now, he will probably need a lot of out of cage time, if the cage is that small - once he has stopped hiding away!

A bin cage might be an option, if you can find a bin big enough, Or if you have the space, an Ikea detolf conversion usually works out cheaper than a glass tank. I think Ikea is in most countries. Is there one near you?
 
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