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Pebbles82 · 07-30-2020, 05:25 PM

Hello and welcome. Exciting! As the others say, taming can need a lot of time and patience and some robos may be more "watch don't touch" pets. But they are very entertaining to watch! And they come out more often than other hamster species - during the day sometimes. Our last robo was never fully hand tamed, but he would sit for ages and have a conversation with you through the cage door

And he would definitely let you know if he liked or didn't like something - so you do get a relationship and a bond.

With any new hamster, leave them alone in their new cage for the first day or two as it's a big change of environment - so they can scent mark their cage and decide where to build a nest. And don't clean out or move things around for the first two weeks. Depending on how quickly the robo seems more confident in the cage I would start taming by offering a treat through the bars. If it isn't a barred cage I wouldn't though as they often don't like a hand coming from above especially at first.

Do you have a cage sorted? I started out with glass tank for our robo but it wasn't working - he was very nervy and hated the top access (and so did I). So I moved him to a slightly larger cage and he was happy as anything in there.

The cage I used (which has now been used for 3 hamsters) is the Savic Mickey 2XL. It has narrow bar spacing so safer for robos and is 80cm by 50cm so a good size. It is not cheap - but a good futureproof cage as suitable for any species of hamster. It is also quite low so less fall risks for a small robo.

It's only sold by Amazon. It has a nice large front opening door and no top access - which I found worked really well for interacting with our robo. It's bigger than it looks on the photos. The metal grid shelf needs removing as that isn't safe for hamsters.

There are other options as well - a bin cage or a perspex duna multy tank. The Duna Multy tanks do have top access but are quite low so better access than a glass tank.

But I prefer cages with big front doors

This is the Savic Mickey 2XL. It comes with a wheel that is probably fine for a Robo. I gave ours a 6.5" flying saucer as well and he used both his wheel and his saucer - there is space for both in that cage.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Savic-Micke...6154645&sr=8-1

The main thing is fill the base with substrate (it takes quite a lot of substrate but after that you spot clean and can go a long time - weeks - without needing to replace it - you just gradually replace areas and only need to change all the substrate about every 2 or 3 months). Plenty of overhead cover - so plenty of floor toys like tunnels and hidey places. They tend to ignore nice little houses and just build a burrow under the substrate - unless you give them a labyrinth house - ours loved his labyrinth house. They nest in those because they're dark inside and mimic a burrow with rooms.

This kind of thing

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trixie-6201...b-865654896618

It also doubles up as a shelf due to the flat roof.

07-30-2020, 05:25 PM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: New Robo hamster soon! Hello and welcome. Exciting! As the others say, taming can need a lot of time and patience and some robos may be more "watch don't touch" pets. But they are very entertaining to watch! And they come out more often than other hamster species - during the day sometimes. Our last robo was never fully hand tamed, but he would sit for ages and have a conversation with you through the cage door And he would definitely let you know if he liked or didn't like something - so you do get a relationship and a bond. With any new hamster, leave them alone in their new cage for the first day or two as it's a big change of environment - so they can scent mark their cage and decide where to build a nest. And don't clean out or move things around for the first two weeks. Depending on how quickly the robo seems more confident in the cage I would start taming by offering a treat through the bars. If it isn't a barred cage I wouldn't though as they often don't like a hand coming from above especially at first. Do you have a cage sorted? I started out with glass tank for our robo but it wasn't working - he was very nervy and hated the top access (and so did I). So I moved him to a slightly larger cage and he was happy as anything in there. The cage I used (which has now been used for 3 hamsters) is the Savic Mickey 2XL. It has narrow bar spacing so safer for robos and is 80cm by 50cm so a good size. It is not cheap - but a good futureproof cage as suitable for any species of hamster. It is also quite low so less fall risks for a small robo. It's only sold by Amazon. It has a nice large front opening door and no top access - which I found worked really well for interacting with our robo. It's bigger than it looks on the photos. The metal grid shelf needs removing as that isn't safe for hamsters. There are other options as well - a bin cage or a perspex duna multy tank. The Duna Multy tanks do have top access but are quite low so better access than a glass tank. But I prefer cages with big front doors This is the Savic Mickey 2XL. It comes with a wheel that is probably fine for a Robo. I gave ours a 6.5" flying saucer as well and he used both his wheel and his saucer - there is space for both in that cage. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Savic-Micke...6154645&sr=8-1 The main thing is fill the base with substrate (it takes quite a lot of substrate but after that you spot clean and can go a long time - weeks - without needing to replace it - you just gradually replace areas and only need to change all the substrate about every 2 or 3 months). Plenty of overhead cover - so plenty of floor toys like tunnels and hidey places. They tend to ignore nice little houses and just build a burrow under the substrate - unless you give them a labyrinth house - ours loved his labyrinth house. They nest in those because they're dark inside and mimic a burrow with rooms. This kind of thing https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trixie-6201...b-865654896618 It also doubles up as a shelf due to the flat roof.