[Oreocookie]

MuShu has become quite confident now, and I can pick her up easily without stressing her out - as long as I offer her a favorite snack☺. I also see her a lot more, since she has taken quite a fancy to her large wooden wheel now, and she is not afraid to come out of her house and her burrows more often.
The behavioral changes came fairly quickly after I reduced temporarily the debth of her burrowing substrate. I had noticed that she was mostly living underground because she was apparently afraid to be aboveground. I heard quite often from disenchanted Chinese hamster owners that they have a phantom or ghost hamster which comes out in order to collect food, but then immediately vanishes again and doesn't show itself for days on end. I really didn't want this state of affairs forever with MuShu. By reducing the substrate debth considerably I forced her to come out more often in order to entertain herself in her cork tunnels and with her twigs and toys. She learned that nothing terrible happens to her when she moves around aboveground. That's when she finally discovered her flying saucer and her big wheel. When I noticed that she had started to exercise regularly, I restored the original substrate debth. She became very creative with her moves in the wheel and on the flying saucer and learned quickly how to use both without getting thrown off. She still loves to burrow, but she didn't go back to her earlier underground existence. She moves around aboveground without fear now, and it's a lot of fun to watch her. The movement of Chinese hamsters is soo different from all other hamster breeds.
I contemplate to introduce living food like crickets for extra stimulation. Since she lives in a large wooden terrarium with sliding glass doors, where only the roof is open for ventilation purposes, it should be possible to close the roof for a while, so that the crickets can't escape.
The only thing which is still very difficult, is taking good pictures. She doesn't like bright lights and she never sits still for more than a few seconds. My cellphone camera is simply not good enough for capturing more than a few blurry images. This is a pity because she is tiny, but absolutely beautiful ☺ Maybe, I should get a night light camera...