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Old 10-19-2016, 01:32 AM  
cypher
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Wales UK
Posts: 24,789
Default Re: Help! I have so many questions!

Hi Melissa welcome to HC.

Which species are Pip & Squeak?
If they are robos they can be hard to tame & take time & a lot of patience, some will never want to be picked up but may tolerate your hand & come to you for treats while others will become hand tame with time.
Russian hams can be territorial about their cage & are sometimes better tamed in a playpen or play bin so the taming method will depend on which species you have.
You may have been going a bit quick for them either way & taming/bonding often takes a backward step now & then but usually picks up again ok. They are sometimes really curious the first few days & come to you surprisingly readily but once they begin to settle aren't so happy as they see the cage as their space but you can get over that easily enough with a little patience.
A week isn't long at all, if you haven't already do the tissue trick to get them really accustomed to having your scent in their space, that means putting some unscented toilet tissue up your sleeve for a few hours then putting it in the cage & repeating daily for as long as it takes.
I wouldn't try picking them up just yet, stick with your hand flat in the cage for now or if you have a barred cage offer treats through the bars, if they bite or nibble try not to react & wait a moment before slowly removing your hand talking to them gently as you do it.
What treats are you using?
Most find sunflower seeds & mealworms very hard to resist & there are other natural foods you can use as treats or just take out the best bits from their mix & use that.

For cleaning it's best to take them out & put them in a pet carrier with some substrate where they will be safe & quiet while you clean.
Disturbing or destroying burrows always seems a bit sad but as long as you don't remove everything in one go they'll soon sort it out again. Always leave some of the old nest material & hoard or replace the hoard with some fresh mix.
For the first month just spot cleaning, removing pee should be enough, if you put a sand bath in with chinchilla sand (not dust) they may well pee in that which makes life so much easier!
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