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sophiedoe · 09-23-2017, 01:53 AM

Hi everyone,

I've been gone for a while, very busy with a new job, but things have been going well with Kalli. After lots of trying and lots of biting, we have kind of decided maybe she is more of a watching ham, and she has seemed pretty happy with her routine of playing in her big Barney cage, and coming out in her ball and in the bath.

But recently, she has been acting quite differently. We have always had some problems with her chewing bars, but using pegs mostly got her to stop. Putting in a free standing water bottle helped, but she kept knocking it over, so I have had to go back to one on the bars (so she wouldn't be all night without a drink) but this seems to encourage the bar chewing. It is now quite bad, she chews in various places along the front of the cage. I keep putting pegs on but it doesn't seem to be helping. I regularly give her new cardboard things to chew and she does chew them a lot, but now also the bars. I know this is a common problem not easily solved, but any more advise would be welcome. She also climbs the bars a lot and even 'spidermans' across the roof of the cage :/. Her wheel is working fine and she runs on it lots still.

Another strange thing is her sleep pattern. She used to have a fairly fixed routine of waking up at about 8pm, and she would always be asleep when I got up at 7am, and we wouldn't see a peep of her through the day. As the evenings got shorter, she started waking up a bit earlier, which I wasn't too surprised about, but recently she is often still awake at 9am! She is awake right now, nearly 10am. Is this something to be concerned about?

She has also stopped wanting to come into her ball - she always used to jump straight in as soon as we put it in the cage and run around, she seemed to enjoy it. But now she doesn't seem keen, she'll sniff it and then turn away. So she hasn't been doing ball time recently.

And lastly - we had a bit of an incident where I had the top of her cage open, turned around, turned back and she was climbing out. Her cage is on a table and I didn't want her to fall, so I gently lifted her around the middle and put her back in. This was the first time I've picked her up, and she seemed okay but I noticed some wet stuff on the bars - it looked like she had peed, but it was a different consistency and smelled REALLY strongly. Is this some kind of natural response, from the shock of it all?

Sorry for the millions of questions, thank you as always for your kind advice.

Sophie.

09-23-2017, 01:53 AM
sophiedoe Newborn Pup Join Date: May 2017 Location: UK Posts: 43	Worried about my ham's behaviour Hi everyone, I've been gone for a while, very busy with a new job, but things have been going well with Kalli. After lots of trying and lots of biting, we have kind of decided maybe she is more of a watching ham, and she has seemed pretty happy with her routine of playing in her big Barney cage, and coming out in her ball and in the bath. But recently, she has been acting quite differently. We have always had some problems with her chewing bars, but using pegs mostly got her to stop. Putting in a free standing water bottle helped, but she kept knocking it over, so I have had to go back to one on the bars (so she wouldn't be all night without a drink) but this seems to encourage the bar chewing. It is now quite bad, she chews in various places along the front of the cage. I keep putting pegs on but it doesn't seem to be helping. I regularly give her new cardboard things to chew and she does chew them a lot, but now also the bars. I know this is a common problem not easily solved, but any more advise would be welcome. She also climbs the bars a lot and even 'spidermans' across the roof of the cage :/. Her wheel is working fine and she runs on it lots still. Another strange thing is her sleep pattern. She used to have a fairly fixed routine of waking up at about 8pm, and she would always be asleep when I got up at 7am, and we wouldn't see a peep of her through the day. As the evenings got shorter, she started waking up a bit earlier, which I wasn't too surprised about, but recently she is often still awake at 9am! She is awake right now, nearly 10am. Is this something to be concerned about? She has also stopped wanting to come into her ball - she always used to jump straight in as soon as we put it in the cage and run around, she seemed to enjoy it. But now she doesn't seem keen, she'll sniff it and then turn away. So she hasn't been doing ball time recently. And lastly - we had a bit of an incident where I had the top of her cage open, turned around, turned back and she was climbing out. Her cage is on a table and I didn't want her to fall, so I gently lifted her around the middle and put her back in. This was the first time I've picked her up, and she seemed okay but I noticed some wet stuff on the bars - it looked like she had peed, but it was a different consistency and smelled REALLY strongly. Is this some kind of natural response, from the shock of it all? Sorry for the millions of questions, thank you as always for your kind advice. Sophie.