Crazy hamster!!

[Pinkchi]

Our syrian, Gizmo, is a complete psycho ham!

She was an avid bar & plastic chewer in her old immac bingo guinea pig cage, so we bought her a zoozone 1 and fixed the top so she can't get on the bars or escape. But now she chews the hole where the water bottle goes! So we stuck the bottle on the inside of the cage with sticky back velcro over the hole and it worked for a while. Then she started chewing the bottle and pulling it off the side. We have now moved the bottle and stuck a load of wood sticks over the hole but she still manages to pull it off and chew!

She also moves everything around her cage, tips up her house, drags everything into one corner and moves everything into her house and digs all the woodshavings into the same corner behind her house. She is insane!

We rotate her toys to stop her getting bored but we cannot get her to stop chewing or wrecking her cage layout.
We are back to her silent spinner which is too small as her comfort wheel made loud noises in the night and she is in out bedroom.

So we need a wheel that is very quiet and the right size for her, and we need to stop her manic behaviour! We would love to get her a bigger cage with bars for more space but as mentioned she is a bar chewer. Is there anything we can do to help/stop her? New cage? new toys? new cage furniture?

Anything, just hate seeing her in her mental state it can't be healthy and she never used to do it


Oh also forgot to add that although she can be annoying we still love her to bits and are willing to do anything to try and make her life any better. We have tried different things but they just haven't worked so any advice will be brilliant thanks x

[suga]

I think sometimes if they chew, they always will do so. We have a cambridge cage and our hamster still chews the bottle spout and pushes it out so the bottle isn't attached to the cage! She chews the bars a bit when she gets up and i have tried to get her to stop but haven't managed to. She has bar rub on her nose but to be honest she seems happy enough so i haven't attempted ot get a new cage.
She also wrecks the place. I put the wood shavings in, she moves them all to the corner, she piles it high and makes a mess all over the floor, every week. She moves the furniture around and see if i put in in the place that she last had it, she moves it just to remind me that its her space!

I guess that's just hte personaility bit comng through. I've no real ideas as to what can be done to stop or reduce your little maniac, who sounds adorable just as she is.

[Pinkchi]

That sounds just like Giz! Don't get me wrong she is adorable and the most tamest hamster i've ever met, just not good at 4am when you have to be up at 7 when shes chewing the plastic around the water bottle/pulling water bottle off velcro etc etc

Wish we had a space to free range her she likes to have a potter around.

What hamster wheel would you recommend? I love the silent spinners but the sizes are just crap! She has a silent spinner at the moment which is a bit small for her as her comfort wheel was sooo noisy! Can't find a wodent wheel anywhere in girly colours or right size..and can't find a saucer wheel thing either.

[Bunsey]

with wodent wheels you just have to take whatever colour becomes available as they don't come up often. Can't hold out for the colour you want and it's more important for the hamster to have something she can run on.

Girls are much more likely to do these crazy house re-arranging, so perhaps you'd be better with a boy next time

Have you tried giving her loads of carboard boxes? My chew-crazy Trixie can demolish a box into confetti in about an hour! I give her the box off everything that's comes in a box, like cereal bars or light bulbs for example.

[Jezzas Mummy]

How strange!! My gizmo is a mentalist too!! She chewed a hole through where her water bottle went ... we were sat on the couch and she just walked past my feet!! my other helf managed to get a new bit of car body panel (he is a paint sprayer) and boarded the hole up but then she started on the clips ...twang twang every night!! so they now have smooth metal plates over them... i brought a toy hangery thing to put the water bottle in as it swings she cant get at it to eat it lol and now she has managed to start on a corner... personally i am thinking a tank maybe the way to go!