Need help taming very scared/shy syrian.

[Gsm_dealer08]

Hello all! New to the forum as this is our first hamster. Bought our little Syrian from Pets-at-home in London 10 days ago. The shop clerk said he is around 3 months old. He was displayed in this very small enclosure and obviously scared. The clerk scared him more by holding him upside down to determine his sex. On the way home (took me about 30 minutes) the whole box was shaking in my hand. The clerk told me to open the box and leave it in the new cage for him to come out whenever he feels comfortable. We didn't bother him at all for 2 days, only left food and replaced the water but he barely came out of his cardboard box at all. The third day I noticed he moved into the wooden log house so we finally removed the transport box. I know they have a very short life span so I wanted to give him the best conditions to live in. I bought the biggest cage I could find. Got him a nice log house, a 20cm wheel (bought a 28cm but could not fit it inside), a Swing, log bridge, burrow tower, wooden chew toys, a sand bath, a potty, pellet food, mix seed food, all sorts of treats and snacks, food dishes, water bottle. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cj1...w?usp=drivesdk
I have watched many videos on how to tame him. Some say hold treats for him in your hand and in time he will warm up to you, some say pick him up and he'll quickly understand you are not a threat. Well, he is still very very scared / shy. He will only come out of his house late at night if all the lights are off and we are silent. Very rarely he will come if the light is on but just to drink water or grab some food then hides again. The closest we ever got to him was when we found him outside his house and he froze in place, and we held food for him at the bars. He then took the food and back into his den for the rest of the evening. I can't do the pick up method because of the cage design. It has 3 doors, one for each level but not enough to stick both hands in there, and people say don't lift him with one hand, cup both hands around him. He does love his home, he is very very active the minute we turn off the lights and don't go anywhere near him. He can go on that wheel for an hour straight, loves to climb on the bars and swing. We are very patient with him but it makes me a little sad as we barely get to see him at all..we just get to hear him at night and that is it. I know I should not force him out of the house, and I won't. How can we make him less scared of us? He is so reluctant to leave his den, he uses it as a toilet. We cleaned it the other day because we noticed the lack of poops in the bedding and his house was packed with them. I understand young hamsters do that but in time will change their toilet place. Please give me some advice as to how to proceed next, I don't want to scare him even more. Here is our closest interaction: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kua...w?usp=drivesdk

[cypher]

I think to begin with you could make some changes to his cage which would help him feel more secure.
The base of the cage needs to be filled up completely with substrate so he has somewhere to dig & burrow down, the house should be on the substrate (the house shouldn't have a base) so he can dig down under there.
I would take out the digging tower as it's not really much use for a syrian & just takes up space that could be put to better use, you could just put some bendy bridges or cardboard/cork tubes or something in the base so he has little hideouts & places to explore there.
I would also take out the hanging thing with chains, those are dangerous & he could have an accident with that.
The cage is very tall so try to make sure there's nowhere he can fall especially onto something hard.
It might be difficult with such a tall cage but they do better off the floor where they pick up on all the vibrations & anyone approaching the cage can be very intimidating.
You could just start with the tissue trick, get some plain white toilet tissue & put it up your sleeve for a while to get your scent on it then shred it up a bit & put it in the cage, that will help him get used to your scent.
Spend time talking to him even if he's hiding away, if he doesn't come out you could just leave a treat for him close to where he's hiding so he begins to make the connection between you & nice things!
10 days isn't long really so give him time to settle after you've made some changes he should become more confident & being to come out when you're around & then you can offer him treats & move on from there.
I'm never in a hurry to pick them up really I wait until they're ready to walk onto my hand then begin lifting to them & getting them used to hands gradually.
If he continues to hide away you may have to just get him out but I would wait awhile longer yet.
As he gets a bit more used to you see if he'll climb into a tube or box or something you can safely transport him in then start taming/interacting out of the cage with a playpen or in the bath (with a towel in the bottom) with toys & things to explore.
For the first month at least don't do any more than spot cleaning any pee you can find, cleaning is really stressful for them & he will need to have his scent on things to feel safe in his cage.

[Gsm_dealer08]

Originally Posted by cypher

I think to begin with you could make some changes to his cage which would help him feel more secure.
The base of the cage needs to be filled up completely with substrate so he has somewhere to dig & burrow down, the house should be on the substrate (the house shouldn't have a base) so he can dig down under there.
I would take out the digging tower as it's not really much use for a syrian & just takes up space that could be put to better use, you could just put some bendy bridges or cardboard/cork tubes or something in the base so he has little hideouts & places to explore there.
I would also take out the hanging thing with chains, those are dangerous & he could have an accident with that.
The cage is very tall so try to make sure there's nowhere he can fall especially onto something hard.
It might be difficult with such a tall cage but they do better off the floor where they pick up on all the vibrations & anyone approaching the cage can be very intimidating.
You could just start with the tissue trick, get some plain white toilet tissue & put it up your sleeve for a while to get your scent on it then shred it up a bit & put it in the cage, that will help him get used to your scent.
Spend time talking to him even if he's hiding away, if he doesn't come out you could just leave a treat for him close to where he's hiding so he begins to make the connection between you & nice things!
10 days isn't long really so give him time to settle after you've made some changes he should become more confident & being to come out when you're around & then you can offer him treats & move on from there.
I'm never in a hurry to pick them up really I wait until they're ready to walk onto my hand then begin lifting to them & getting them used to hands gradually.
If he continues to hide away you may have to just get him out but I would wait awhile longer yet.
As he gets a bit more used to you see if he'll climb into a tube or box or something you can safely transport him in then start taming/interacting out of the cage with a playpen or in the bath (with a towel in the bottom) with toys & things to explore.
For the first month at least don't do any more than spot cleaning any pee you can find, cleaning is really stressful for them & he will need to have his scent on things to feel safe in his cage.

Thank you for the advice! I did put toilet paper with my scent in there and on the rare occasions he came to the bars he kept on sniffing my hand. I'll try to keep the cleaning to a minimum but I have to wait for him to get out and hide somewhere else so I can lift his house and take the soiled bedding. The first time I did it (when we realised he was doing his business in there) it was so bad the wooden house started getting soaked with his pee. I try to do some spot cleaning when he is hiding in his tower, that way I don't have to force him out of his home. Will put more bedding next time we clean the cage and remove the swing thing. He didn't have much interest in that anyway. He seems to like the sand bath a great deal but I read it's not good to leave it in there all the time so we only put it one night a week.

[cypher]

Leaving the sand bath in all the time is fine (it's chinchillas that shouldn't have it left in the cage, no problem with hams).
I would go ahead & put more substrate in as soon as you can as that is one of the most important things for them.
They do often pee in the house when they're young, if you could get a bigger house or make one out of something like a shoebox then you could probably put a litter tray in there (with sand not litter pellets) & he might use that which would mean not having to destroy his nest when you spot clean.

[Gsm_dealer08]

Originally Posted by cypher

Leaving the sand bath in all the time is fine (it's chinchillas that shouldn't have it left in the cage, no problem with hams).
I would go ahead & put more substrate in as soon as you can as that is one of the most important things for them.
They do often pee in the house when they're young, if you could get a bigger house or make one out of something like a shoebox then you could probably put a litter tray in there (with sand not litter pellets) & he might use that which would mean not having to destroy his nest when you spot clean.

Since you mentioned the litter pellets, I bought for him the 'Potty n Litta' hamster toilet and pellets, he went there a few times but didn't do his business even with the little soiled bedding I placed inside. I think some of the pellets went missing, is it possible he is eating them? The kit had good reviews from hamster owners and I thought would be fine.

[cypher]

I'm not convinced those pellets are safe if ingested, chances are he won't have eaten any, they most probably just got thrown out into the substrate somewhere but I would remove them & just put sand in the tray to be on the safe side.

[pixs]

Aww your hammy is super cute. He sounds like my Pixel. Also came from a pet shop really scared and shaking. Also was handled roughly by the pet shop. Cypher also helped me out with the info about the cleaning bit. He was doing alright before I did a total cage clean with his hoard. He did climb onto my hand and into a shoebox before I cleaned out his cage. After I did he was super grumpy and didn't want to come to me. Just takes his snack and leaves. It's all making sense now. I think we just have to be patient. I talk to him when I pass by. Now he comes out whenever i talk to him. But still not right to me. .... but good luck with your cutie.

[Charliestar]

I just brought my Syrian home last week, they look similar actually and our Peaches is around 3 months too! Bonding went well for a while but now we're stuck too! I'm using the Zoo zone 2 hamster cage which is a really great size and does fit a 28cm wheel in case you ever want to upgrade him!

This what I've done for bonding so far:
> I've not woken Peaches up simply worked around her time schedule. I've noticed that the harsh room light makes her go back to bed so have just been turning the hall light on and then interacting with her that way.
> Toilet paper trick - not sure how effective that's been but nothing major.
> I've been feeding her every meal by hand. I started by holding treats between my fingers and letting her take them and have now moved on to laying my hand flat and letting her climb into them to eat.

That's basically as far as I've gotten, I've tried to do bathtub bonding but she seemed really stressed so I put her back in the cage!

The cage pictures are really blurry! Sorry

[Sebario]

Hey, I'm a first time syrian hamster owner who bought a scared hammie. My only suggestions would be to move the sand bath to the bottom level nearer to the nest which would help with potty training and also use more substrate.

As you can see from my pics my hamster has built a fairly big nest which is protected with a platform.

I would also recommend the Alaskan cage from Zooplus which is the current cage you see. I finally got my hands on the eco habitat large cage so that will be set up in the next week

[Gsm_dealer08]

I gave the cage some more substrat and he seems to enjoy that. Gathered a lot of it around his house, built himself a bunker. Charliestar, our hamsters do looks alike! Is what some call the panda Syrian. So much so that my wife insisted on naming him Panda! Very generic but I call him my little fur ball anyway. It is a little hard to see in the photo but his house is actually under the first platform of the cage as I know they enjoy privacy. It left just enough room for his little potty right next to it. I put the sand bath at the top since he now uses it every night and I want to encourage him to explore the top levels too. The chain ladder is now gone and a large kitchen towel paper tube is in there. Seems the light in the room is the biggest issue. I need to get some night light as the spot lights are very cold sharp brightness and I think that bothers him. Maybe not put any food close to his den and wait for him to come looking for it, then try feeding him by hand.