Dwarf Biting?

rek143 · 09-01-2014, 05:43 PM

My winter white dwarf, Pippa has been with me for about 1 1/2 months. In the beginning she was fine to handle, she would hesitantly crawl into my hand and just sit their. After a while I noticed she was chewing on her cage bars and waiting to be let out. I put my hand to the cage entrance and opened the cage, she crawled on and immediately bit me. I tried again a couple days later and she did the same thing. Is their a reason why she's doing this? How can I stop it? I really want to ahndle her but she's just proven to be a bit difficult. They aren't exactly hard bites, but they do hurt. Please help, this is my first winter white.

I've been trying to find a new home for her, but rodent markets where I live isn't very big so I've been trying to get along with her.

Skeever · 09-01-2014, 08:33 PM

Can you get her to crawl into a playball? She may not bite at all outside her cage area. Many hams don't like being 'brought out' of their home, but will interact once outside. Check some of the threads here about bathtub training....letting her play in a bathtub, and then playing with you in the bathtub with her.

Rule of thumbs with hams? let them come to you at their speed.

Teddy001 · 09-01-2014, 09:05 PM

Rek- I recently got a dwarf hamster, that's nippy- I've watched her, and the nippy, is her way of exploring, not familiar with many things. Your dwarf maybe a combo of not being totally comfortable with human touch and exploring by nipping, biting.?
What I'm doing with my dwarf, is getting her out of her cage, with a cup, setting up a play pen area, which allows her to explore, nibble on unfamilar Hammie toys, and burn energy. While she's exploring, I offer her a treat, and while she is enjoying her treat, I'll stroke her back, to get her use to the touch of my hands. I've been doing this for 3 nights in a row, and last night, she walked onto my hand, willingly, once on my hand, she ran up my arm, then back onto my hand, with no nipping or bitting. I'm continuing with this method with her, as its working to build her trust with me, while associating, " play time" equals' " yummy treats" from my human, which in turn is building trust and a bond between my dwarf and I.

Maybe try this method and see how it works out for you and your dwarf.

cypher · 09-01-2014, 10:53 PM

I'd definitely go along with what's already been said but I'm curious about the bar chewing, I never had a dwarf do this & I could be wrong but I think that's fairly unusual, does she have lots of toys she can chew on in the cage & how big is her cage? If it's a bit too small that could cause her to get a bit more territorial & bite when you put your hand in the cage.
They can get a bit territorial about their cages once they've established it as their home but with time, patience & a gentle approach she should come round.

rek143 · 09-11-2014, 10:43 AM

Thanks everyone for your replies!
I've used the bathtub method, but I strongly dislike doing it with her. She's so small I'm scared i'm gonna crush her, and she always tries running under me, only to bite at my arms and feet.

As for the cage chewing, her house is large. It's a large dome shaped wire cage. She has a cheese chew, a wood ball, 3 tubes, a snack shak log thing, and 2 huts. I let her play in the ball but she always wants to get out of the ball, so I put her back in the cage.

I'm not quite sure it's a territorial thing considering I'm not handling her inside her cage, and she's the one that keeps trying to get out of the cage. I've never tried scooping her up out of the cage, and I've never picked her up unless she climbed on me. I'm not a professional though so I'm probably wrong.

Pilgrim77 · 09-11-2014, 11:11 AM

It could be cage aggression is the problem. I'd a dwarf, Vincent, who for the first few weeks allowed you to put your hand in the cage no problem. But after that he started biting. It's defending their territory I guess. Outside of the cage though he didn't bite and was very sweet. If you try putting in a toilet roll tube, wait til she goes into it and carefully pick it up - let her wander onto your flat hand which doesn't give her too much to bite and see how she gets on?

XRubyRoseX · 09-11-2014, 11:32 AM

Miso, one of my dwarfs, used to be terrible for nipping people. Whenever we'd lay our hands in his cage he would come over and just nip until we took our hand out. So we've tried using a glove to handle him, we place our gloved hand flat in his cage and let him climb onto it. When he comes out, we wait until he's comfortable then take off the glove so he's on our hands. Over the past couple of weeks he's gotten loads better and doesn't nip now, I still take both of the hamsters out with gloves on since they seem to prefer that, but then take the gloves off whilst handling. It might be worth a shot doing this, your dwarf might not like being picked up or they may have cage aggression (I think that was Miso's problem, so wearing gloves and allowing him to nibble on them has allowed him to learn that me and the glove are no threat to him and that he doesn't have to bite, he doesn't bite on the glove anymore either). Hope this helps

Skeever · 09-11-2014, 12:02 PM

Rek, from what you've said, it doesn't seem to be related to the cage. I've been reading a lot lately of dwarf hams nipping, and it might be a nipping problem...as in they enjoy nipping things. It doesn't seem fearful and it happens in the tub as well?

If you check through the site, like me , you'll probably find quite a few versions of this problem. Some solutions are gloves till they feel they get no response, going even more slowly and maybe seeing this lil dwarf as a watch don't handle too much kinda guy....I don't have dwarves though so I don't know. Sounds like you're doing things right, and still the lil thang is nippy....

Keep us posted

**kyrilliondaemon** · 09-11-2014, 02:03 PM

It doesn't sound cage related to me either. One of ours is just nippy, we took him on knowing that and while he has developed cage aggression too we think that once we've sorted the nipping outside the cage we should be able to work on the cage aggression. In Berties case we've opted to use gloves so that he doesn't get a response, but Bertie is a clever little animal and seems to know the difference between gloves and skin - when he gives up on the gloves he either starts behaving himself or tries to get to the wrist and nip the skin there instead lol. We're going to keep going with the gloves, see how things go and hopefully eventually get him so used to the gloves he doesn't try at all - thats when we'll try with bare hands again. In the long run either we'll sort it or he'll stay nippy, but even if he does we'll just move him to an even bigger cage and handle him with gloves - either way he's happy and thats the main thing

rek143 · 09-12-2014, 01:44 PM

Thanks Guys! I tried using clean dish washer gloves, hopefully that's the type of gloves you were talking about. She was biting for the first couple of minutes, but then stopped and I took off the gloves a couple minutes after she stopped. Once the gloves were off she just went right at my fingers... lol. The little booger's not gonna be handled again, at least not until these bites have healed up.

thanks for all the advice though!