Hamster freaks out in light?

[cypher]

The best time for taming/bonding is usually in the evening when she gets up, or maybe you can encourage her to get up when feeding. She doesn't need total darkness for that, just low level lighting, I find lamps work better than bright lights & you an also try using red led lights as they can't see red light.

[Thin Lizzy]

I use lamps rather than the main light, I find the touch lamps are great, which have 3 settings.

[HenriandHobieHammies]

Originally Posted by Coco449

Do you think she'll be awake for long enough to tame during the day?

If she is a Syrian, then probably not, and I don't reccomend waking her during the day (She will be grumpy), but if you are around near dawn and dusk, that is basically considered the perfect times to tame!

[Piebald]

Try using red light. Supposedly it does not bother them so much having to do with what spectrum they see or something. This will give you some light to see by for taming at least. You might get some red christmas lights on sale now too.

[Bertiebobbins]

Mine have got totally used to normal lighting, although I'm not one for bright lights anyway I prefer to have "mood lighting" so it isn't really glare-y. They got used to the lights as they got more confident, which has taken about four months. They've been tame for a lot longer than that, so I'm not using "confident" instead of "tame"! One has always been bold as brass, but the other has really come out of himself recently and will march around the room when the lights are on now rather than hiding away.

[Coco449]

Hey everyone thank you for all the advice!

The thing is that she seems not to know when to get up until it is fully dark. She will stay sleeping late into the night if I don't turn off the light or cover her cage and she will stay active late into the day if I don't uncover the box and provide light. So I guess a red light is the best fix here

[Pebbles82]

Our hamster is the same - sleeps for England lol. Rarely gets up before we have gone to bed voluntarily. I got him into the feeding time wake-up routine. That is, you put their food out/change water a little bit noisily at a certain time of the evening - whether it's 5pm, 6pm, 7pm or 8pm. Try and find a time that fits around your schedule well and try and keep to that time. A bit of bar clanging while doing it should wake her up.

This wakes ours up enough to come out of his house if I have a tube over his house doorway with food in! Something tasty enough to smell - a bit of banana or cucumber or cheese eg. I put one end of the tube over his door and the treat in the other end, and when he walks into the tube, lift the tube out (put your hands over either end so he can't jump out). I lift ours onto the sofa then, because he is quite tame and the sofa isn't far from his cage. But even then I have a big fleece blanket I put along the edge sort of piled up, as a bit of a barrier, plus it's something he can go under if he wants to.

I've found it interesting that his activity levels are different depending on the time I get him out. Anything before 8pm and he is quite active and isn't out for long for that reason as keeps trying to run! Between 8pm and 10pm he is very docile and just curls up and goes to sleep on you, if he can find a nice spot (eg between us on the sofa, which is like high walls! or under the blanket which I guess feels dark and safe).

I started doing it not just because we have a little boy who wants to see his Hamster (it was a tip in the RSPCA book) but because someone more expert on here once suggested you should handle them every day or they start to lose their tameness. I do find that. If I don't get him out for 2 or 3 days, he is less amenable to it!

In the middle of the night they come into their own and are active and wide awake a lot of the time. If I opened Charlie's cage door after midnight he would be off! And wanting to explore (hardwired to forage at this time I think). But if you come down in the night they can also 'freeze' and pretend they're not active!

I would go with the waking routine at a set time each night. Our time varies a little but not by too much - the routine bit seems important. If she's not tame enough to have on the sofa, that's the time you could take her to the bathtub for a bit of playtime and handling. If you have a hamster ball it's a good way of transporting them safely. I used to put the far end of the tube in the hamster ball before Charlie was tame, so he'd walk into the tube and out the other end into his ball. I'd let him have a run for 5 minutes or so then take him up to the bathtub, put the ball in the dry bathtub and open it up so he could walk out, and have the tube and a couple of other tpys in there.

Interestingly he wasn't bothered about light while he was in the bathtub. But generally I also just have low lighting and lamps. Nothing too bright (he hates our angle poise reading lamp!)

I recently did a short video on how we got Charlie tame in the bathtub - it's a bit basic but gives an idea of how to do slow progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyEme2xcq4

[LoveHammies420YT]

I found this post & joined the forum adter searching “hamster freaks out in light” on Google. My new female Syrian is 110% identical, exactly word for word! I don’t think the people replying understand the extent & were even confused in a few cases... I myself have had hamsters for 4 years now, my Russian Dwarf passed away of cancer recently... so a few weeks later I decided to get a bath Syrian ☺️💕
I’m fully aware hamsters are nocturnal, & am aware of everything else stated in the previous replies but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. For the first week I had her she would actually get up in the day & eat a bit & I had been attempting preliminary taming. However upon moving her into her new larger enclosure she stopped getting up in the day, this was about 7 days into having her. It started the first night & that was fine by me, perfectly normal as hamsters are nocturnal so I began taming at night. Thing is my robos are skittish & hide when the lights go on so I was taming my little Syrian in the dark for that second week with just a flashlight on in the room. It wasn’t even about her I didht want to upset the robos... So a week went by & I never turned the lights on while she was awake, then earlier tonight had to adjust something in my robos cage.. so I stupidly turned the light on not even thinking about the fact Mouse (my Syrian) was awake on her wheel etc & might react to the light 🤦🏼*♀️
Mouse started going nuts!!!! I noticed within a minute of the light going on, Running around the cage at full speeds then after about 2 minutes bar biting!!! My little Mouse was bar bitting!!! 😭 Then she started climbing the cage which she has NEVER DONE!! I was terrified she was gonna start monkey barring! She is the most timid shy hamster ever i couldn’t believe she was running around acting like that?! At first I didht know what to think, then after a minute thought she was exited about the light was on & wanted to play (as an earlier reply also suggested) My son was in the room & walked up to the cage, he had no previous taming sessions with her but she ran right over to him pacing & climbing!! This is a hamster who runs away if you offer her a treat! She suddenly climbed to the top of the cage & discovered an upper level I created that had gone undiscovered for over a week! I had NEVER seen her bar bite or climb before this, all she wanted was to get out of the cage! Like just because the light turned on all of a sudden she thought the cage wasn’t safe anymore... that’s literally what it looked like
People debate whether hamsters like climbing or are good climbers.. from what I’ve seen in 4 years of having hamsters.. they are excellent at climbing , UP, not so much at going down.. especially on bars.. when she got stuck hanging near the top of the cage I could tell she needed my help so I opened the cage & put my hand in. Keep in mind this is a TIMID hamster, literally runs about 50% of the time as soon as she sniffs my finger 😬 I had been making slow progress over the last 2 weeks of having her, I had been giving her fresh veggies & seeds from my hand a few times a day since she arrived. It took 3 days just for her to accept a treat from me! This was a first for me as my previous Syrian who was a young male was totally tame when I got him & my 2 Russian dwarfs as well
Anyway when she got stuck hanging near the top of the cage I put my bags in & she climbed on!! It was SO nice to feel her little feeties on my hand but trust me she did not want to play she was freaking out!! She spent 2 minutes going from my sweater sleeve back onto the cage door, I think that’s the only good that came of it cuz she got a good sniff of the hoodie I’ve been living in lol. I closed the cage & turned the lights off realizing that’s what was setting her off but she went straight to bar bitting so bad & hard sticking her poor little nose so far between the bars I was so confused as she has over 640 square inches, a dig box, a sand bath, a potty (& she’s potty trained!!) multiple hides, toys, multiple substrates including coconut fibre, moss, aspen AND paper bedding, wide variety diet including seeds, fruits, veggies, wild flowers (& soon meal worms!)
I’m not a hamster newb & I’ve never seen this behaviour before, my robos only come out at night & hide when I turn the light on but that’s normal for untamed or shy hamsters. This young female Syrians behaviour is totally different, she’s legit terrified of the light & goes into panic mode almost like a mother animal who’s babies have been taken or a totally wild animal whos just been caged for the first time. The fear literally made her scared enough to lose her fear of humans enough to climb on my hand to try to escape...
I really hope she’s calmed down when I go back in to check on her cuz I’d hate for her to start hating her enclosure just because I stupidly turned the light on!!