Hi everyone, I'm jaysephine and am looking for some help as you are all clearly very knowledgeable and we're not! All the advice i can find is for young hamsters so i was wondering if it's the same for older ones.
We adopted a lovely little black Syrian, Alan, he is about a year old. He is quite shy. We left him the best part of a week to get used to his surroundings (gave him a run round the bath part way through and the poor little thing was terrified so we gave him more time to settle. I was with him and am worried I've scared him). We've tried to be patient and let him come to us so have been gradually upping contact. He's started taking food from our hands - not every time, but mostly.
We've put him in a little pen the past couple of nights and he seemed fine, but tonight was scared again and hid where he could
we really want to hold him but the advice has been conflicting. I keep being told to just grab him or scoop him but that feels like too much for him. Or are we being too soft about it?
My main worry is that he's going to not have enough contact and will learn to hate any attempt at holding. We don't know his past but the lady at the adoption centre picked him up fine and he crawled all over us seemingly happily. I'm concerned if we keep leaving it he will get worse. Is that fair or should we keep going as we are, being gradual? Do older hamsters take longer to trust people? We just want him to be happy and comfortable around us!
Admittedly we could be over thinking this.
Thank you for any help
