Merry is now a free-roaming hamster! I'd been getting him out in a play pen I'd made - but once I put him in it I realised it wasn't tall enough. But initially he hadn't noticed and only spent 5 minutes in there at a time before wanting to go back in his cage, so I thought I'd wait and see what he did before re-thinking the playpen idea. And then last night, after he tried to escape the play pen a couple of times, I decided to let him the third time.
I thought he'd be a bit overwhelmed by the space and want to go back in his cage after 5 minutes. But no, he had a great time running round the room, sniffing everything. I ended up having to put him back in his cage myself and then he looked very mournfully at me through the bars.
merry sniffing shoes.jpg
merry sad.jpg
And despite being very motivated by treats when in his cage, he's not at all interested in them when out of it. Probably too many other things to investigate!