Why has my hamster suddenly become aggressive?

[CherryBerry]

I've been raising my Syrian hamster(female) for about 1 year. My friend had her for a month before then, and she got it from Petco, so I'm not sure how old she exactly is.

It took me about 3 weeks to tame her and it has been pretty cool since then. I would let her on my palm and shoulder, play on top of kitchen counter and never had any problem.

She is a climber and escaper though, always try to climb on top of something like her water bottle and bite off hamster ball within a week to escape from it. She's been living in this huge fish tank due to her biting behavior in wire cage. There hasn't been any change in her habitat, food, or anything in past 6 months.



That's about her.

The problem began to occur couple weeks ago. When I let her on top of kitchen counter, she usually run around, sometimes jump off from it to escape, which most of the time I block it before she does it. But lately, she's been biting dish drying rack on the counter and even chew off some pieces of power cord to my electric kettle. So I stopped letting her there anymore.

Then, when I got her new hideout house, 100% edible, small house with roof with thick grass. This is the same kind that I've been buying her for months, and she always goes into it without damaging much. It would usually last for good two months and she barely touches the roof. This time, it was different. Within a day, she ripped off the entire roof. I meant she literally torn them all apart and never used the house.

And just few days ago, when I was picking her up after she escaped from the hamster ball, she nibbled me for the first time in like.. 10 months. She had escaped many many times, and she never really nibbled me when she got caught.

It was two nights ago when I was trying to pet her in the cage. And sure, I understand that maybe she thought I was invading her territory since she was cozed up in her bedding and she got annoyed with it. But then she bit me real hard I had to bleed and I never seen her doing it.

And last night, after she played in her ball, I was just picking her up to put her back to the cage. She then nibbled my finger to jump off from my palm, which again, never happened before.



She seemed, for some reason, intimidated. You know, you see her face, especially her eyes and around nose, something just looks so odd. I don't know what.

I don't see any difference in the color of her feces, nothing on her body that indicate any health problem.




Anyone has any idea of what might be happening to her body?

[sak_soon]

My hamster Almond, which is also a Syrian hamster, had the same hideout house. She used it almost for a year and she started ripping off the roof... I think that's the sign of health problem. Almond passed away a month later due to the pneumonia/heart disease... Or it could be just because she's stressed out.. But it was also not normal for her. She showed some other odd behavior, such as digging the ground all of a sudden which she never has done, changing sleep area constantly, etc.... You might want to see a vet before it's late....