Attention seeker or teething?

[MollyTheHam]

My hamster is in a bin cage next to my bed, and recently she's become somewhat fixated on chewing on a particular corner of her cage. She's also essentially bitten a hole through her favorite chew toy. Is she teething or is she attention seeking? Or just plain bored?

[BrainGirl]

They don't teethe so I'm afraid it's probably an obsession with her. Can you block the corner she's chewing on and maybe give her some new toys or rotate a selection of toys to keep her mind off it?

[DrKMcK]

Hello MollyThe Ham. It's also important to make sure she has lots of wood chew toys. She's supposed to chew her toys. Hamsters absolutely must chew to keep their teeth trim or they can over grow and hurt them. Chewing is a natural behavior for them. If they have enough chew toys it can help distract them from destructive cage or bar chewing.

[Shannonmcn]

If her cage is roomy enough and she has other things to chew on then it's probably attention seeking. I find that my Syrians have never shown much interest in plain wood chews but rosewood do these hay covered tubes either filled with a carrot or I think corn centre or as a little tunnel that they both enjoyed. The snack shack edible tunnels are pretty popular too or sea grass things are natural and chewable too.

Ignoring bar chewing is really hard, my girl starts when she sees the light of me reading my iPad in the dark at night, she never makes a peep if I'm on my kindle!