I got my Syrian Bosse two and a half weeks ago, when he was five weeks old. He is in a Detolf cage with deep (25 cm) bedding in one end.
My problem is that he stays burrowed under the bedding throughout the day and evening and doesn't come out until after midnight. He is quite shy and cautious, and I'm guessing that he's avoiding us, and prefers to be out when it's dark and quiet.
The first night after we brought him home he came out at 8 pm, the next evening it was 10 pm, then 11, and now constantly around midnight - 12:30 am. So in my optimistic mind this indicates that his normal time to wake up could be between 8 and 10, and his current late habits are due to shyness. I actually hear him being active and eating under the bedding from 10 pm most evenings, although not constantly.
What I've been doing during the past two weeks is to stay awake until he comes out, and then talk to him and just be around, to get him used to me. After a few days of just talking, I started to give him treats through the meshed cage lid, and he's been gradually more willing to take them. Then one day I put my hand in the cage some 30 cm away from him, and he came to take the treat from me. So there has been progress! (Although right now we're having a bit of a backlash..)
BUT now I started working again after vacation and I can't afford being dead tired every day. Yesterday I went to bed early and set an alarm for 12:30 am and got up to get on with the taming. After that it was really hard to get back to sleep, and today I feel like crap. I can't go on like this, I have kids to look after as well! Also, as it is now, my kids don't get to see their new pet, ever
Here are the different options I thought of myself:
1. Persevere with the late nights, and hopefully after a while he starts expecting very tasty treats when I'm around, and I'll be able to coax him out from his burrows when I hear hime being awake earlier in the evening.
This would be ideal in many ways but I'm already exhausted and today was my first day back at work, it's not going to get any easier.
2. Remove, or cut down on, the deep bedding, to make him more available to my taming attempts.
I don't really like this option because it would mean disturbing his safe space, and it would totally stress him out. BUT if he would live in a house instead of in tunnels it would be much easier to try to coax him out with delicious treats, and also my kids would be able to get a glimpse of him sometimes.
3. Try to take him out into a smaller container for taming (during the night when he's out and about) to speed up the taming process.
I don't really like this either, I would expect him to just get stressed and nervous and maybe it would just make things worse.
So I came up with three bad options, please give me a fourth one that's better
