Peculiar behaviour

[hollynelson]

My favourite hamster (not that you should have favourites :wink: ) is my little sapphire Flowers. She is really active, is the slimmest of the three and spends a lot of her time out of her bed scuffling around her cage and has been that way since I got her, she is very adventurous (I let her out in my walk in wardrobe the other day, which I have turned into a sort of a hamster haven with loads of boxes on the floor and when I went in I found her running along the clothes rail, was so scared, she could easily have fallen, have no idea how she managed to climb up there :? but have now had to tie all of my clothes up so they are no where near the floor!)

Anyway...she has started to develop this strange behaviour of going up to the side of her cage, standing on her hind legs and pushing herself off the side with her front legs, so she is on her back and then wriggling around the cage on her back, going through the tubes on her back and even just lying on her back to nibble on cardboard.

Could it be a neurological problem?? I am guessing it could be because she is so active there isn't enough to stimulate her in her cage ( she is in a tub cage that I made with cardboard tubes etc), should I make her a multi level cage and put a wheel in? It is cute behaviour, but I don't want it to happen if it comes from boredom.

Holly x

[Bunsey]

it wouldn't hurt to try some extra toys and stuff.... but this does sound like the classic backflipping behaviour caused by neurological problems in hybrids :(

[hollynelson]

Ah, really. Oh dear, blooming pet shops. I imagine she is not actually a ww then. I won't ever buy from a pet shop again. Esp. not pets at home they are a nightmare. Thanks for your felp. Do neurological disorders shorten lifespans in any way?

[hollynelson]

Hmmm...have popped a wheel in with her to see if this would help and she went round it for a little while, before she resumed the back flipping thing. I can only think you're right Bunsey and that she is a hybrid (albeit a very loveable one, poor thing). :( will research this problem a bit furhter I think.

[Bunsey]

i'm not totally sure, but i think it would shorten her life, yeah. I had a hybrid and he only lived to about 18 months even though he didn't have any neurological issues.

[hollynelson]

Hmm, I suppose if someone was careless enough to breed a hybrid there may also be other issues there too like inbreeding, or breeding from poor quality stock. It doesn't matter to me, I love them all just the same, but it's a real ahame that people don't think about the consequences of poorly bred animals.

[Bunsey]

it could be one of two cases really. firstly it could be a pet shop that just doesn't care and breeds for money or it could be someone who really believes they have pure stock... or, third (yes i know i said one of 2 thing) it could be someone who doesn't even know there are 2 different russian dwarf species.

I had a hybrid off someone who really believed she'd got a pure winter white and didn't even know about hybrids. mind you, she was trying to breed him to a chinese, so i think we can assume she was none to bright :roll:

[hollynelson]

Lol. Well I think it is safe to say I have learned a huge lesson here, I won't buy hybrids again, not because they aren't cute but because I don't want to fund this. And I won't buy from a pet shop again because they didn't care enough to not have hybrids in the shop!! I am not saying I wouldn't rescue one or have one again, just that I wouldn't buy one as wouldn't fund this.

Holly

[hollynelson]

I have moved Flowers to a new cage (I had an old rotastck lying round) and this seemed to do the trick...she now enjoys climbing the tube (vertical, without steps, not sure how she does it!) to play on the wheel. I am not sure why she wouldn't use the wheel in her old tank, however this does seem to have put a stop to the back flipping, so maybe it was caused by behaviour?