Taming and tube nesting - help!

[marniemama]

We got our little female syrian hamster, Marnie, about three weeks ago. She was about 8 weeks old when we got her.
It's a reasonably sized cage with plastic tubing that comes out of each side and connects over the top of the cage.

When we first brought Marnie home, she made a nest in her little wooden house inside the cage. A few days later, we took off the stoppers and attached the plastic tubing so she had more to explore (mistake!). Overnight, she moved all of her food/bedding material up into the tubing above the cage. She pretty much lives in there ever since. She has started weeing/pooing up there and it's really difficult to clean and is smelly as there is no sawdust material to soak it up.
It's also hard making progress with taming when she's up there, as we cant give her a gentle nudge to wake her up at about 9pm which was what we were doing before, when she was sleeping in her cage house.

We decided to take off the tubing after reading advice online, but this made her very distressed, even though we moved all her nesting material back into the cage for her to use. She started staying awake all night and into the morning biting her cage bars, agitated and appeared desperate to get out. She would also scratch and bite at the tube stoppers for ages, and you can see the scratch marks on the plastic window of the stopper. I felt bad after a few days of this as she was clearly upset so I reattached the tubing. She seems much more calm and happy again, but she's started nesting and peeing up there again and it's getting unhygienic again.

Taming wise, we've been getting her out in her ball and petting her whilst giving her snacks. I did manage to lead her onto my hand with a snack outside of her cage. She doesn't usually wake up until 11-12pm so without giving her a gentle nudge (which was working fine before the tube nesting happened) I will barely see her to do as i work fulltime so can't be there late in the night. Some nights she doesn't come out of the tubing at all before I'm in bed and I'm worried I'm losing crucial taming time

Looking for some advice really on what to do. Ideally I don't want her nesting in her tubes as she's making a mess and it's making taming difficult, but i don't want to remove them if it's going to stress her out in the reasonably new environment. Thanks for your help!

[Shannonmcn]

Hi Marnie's mum! Sound like the two of you are stressing eachother out, coming at this from two different directions!

From your pov, yes removing the tubing is the right thing to do. It is unhygienic and it does make interacting with them harder. The overall stress level from constantly having to unblock the tubes to clean them is one thing but it's not well ventilated either so for Marnie's benefit it's best they go.

From her pov though, she feels secure there. She is still only new, still nervous and still a baby and it gives her somewhere that she can't be bothered when she doesn't want to be. Which is also good! She needs somewhere she feels safe and she is telling you that very clearly.

In my opinion making her feel safe and secure without tubes is more important than taming for now, it will go faster in the long term if shes confident and relaxed with her home before you start trying to get her used to even more new things on top. So, few things to consider;

-You say the cage is "reasonable". What does this mean? Some hams just need more space, cage "minimums" be damned, and reasonable for you might not be reasonable for her.
-Does she have a deep enough layer of substrate she can burrow down into? If she can make her own little burrow she won't need the fake plastic tubes!
-Does she have enough places she can go to hide? Sometimes she just isn't going to want to see you and that's fine so she should have somewhere she can go that she knows she won't be annoyed. Give her options, like cardboard boxes, tunnels, bendy bridges etc so she can pick her favourite spot and when she's in there, leave her be. If you want to encourage her to get up earlier, make plenty of noise when you're feeding her, use treats she can smell like little bits of cheese or peanuts and reward her when you do see her up. That's a lot more positive than waking her up deliberately. Once shes happy in her home you can push on with making friends but first things first

[Ria P]

Hi, I've had my hamster Henry for 3 weeks and we're slowly getting to know each other. Like yours, my hamster gives me little opportunity to interact with him. It seems that he sleeps all day/evening and comes out to play when I'm asleep. He does come out daytime when I'm out, I can tell and looks at me from his wheel when I come home from a late shift then disappears into his house not to be seen again which is a bit disappointing for me. I did make a mistake though by lifting off the roof of his house to see if he's awake. He did not like that at all. I could tell by his body language. When my hamster starts digging frantically and shows me his backside it means 'I'm not happy so go away and leave me alone'. I respect his privacy now. You woke your hamster up with a nudge which I believe could have made her very cross with you. I find that early morning is a good time to interact with Henry before he goes to his bed for a deep sleep. I lifted the cage top off at 06.30 today and found him sitting in his second nest looking at me. I took him out, petted him and let him run around in the hall but put him back when he started to dig and then hide under the egg box which is his way of saying 'I've had enough, now put me back'. If he would have been in his house I would have left him alone. Once back he ate his treat of a little piece of banana and went to bed in his house. I may not be able to pet him again till tomorrow morning, if I'm lucky but may see him tonight If I'm really lucky. I do hope that he becomes more sociable with me as time goes on but I have learned that this little thing of a hamster calls the shots and not me.

[Pebbles82]

Hi. This is a common problem with tubes and you did right to remove them. The problem probably is the timing and whether or not the rest of the cage has enough enrichment.

I do think it sounds too small as there aren't many cages with external tubes going over the top.

An ideal minimum set up for a Syrian hamster is cage that is not too tall (to avoid fall risks) and has a continuous flooorspace of approx 80cm x 50cm - although bigger is good too and allows for enough enrichment. Height - about 42 cm is good -no more than 44cm tall ideally - although up to 50cm you can adapt the cage to avoid fall risks.

Anyway Marnie is still a baby. Not sure when you took the tubes out but the first two weeks you have them it's recommended not to make any changes. Even if it was after that it is still early days.

As Shannon says, she now doesn't feel secure (along with having a big tantrum!).

They bar chew to escape because their territory no longer feels safe and isn't how they want it.

My suggestion for now would be to pop a larger house into her current cage - something the size of a shoe box- with a flat roof.

In fact you can make it out of a shoebox - cut the base out, cut a hole in for a door (along one of the long sides) and use the lid as a lift off roof. That way you can check inside if you need to without having to lift the house out, so her nest doesn't fall apart.

She will be able to build a big cosy nest in there and will feel secure in the dark. She will probably nest in the corner away from the entrance, where it's darkest. If you have a bendy bridge tunnel you could put that over the door entrance - this then makes a ramp up onto the roof so it can be used like a shelf area, maybe with the food bowl on it. It also makes a tunnel entrance into the house, which she will like, and makes the house darker inside.

They do need somewhere dark to retreat to.

If you do make a house that size I would suggest putting a litter tray inside it, as I find when they have a large house they move their pee corner inside the house (at the door end usually, back corner).

If the house isn't that big she will probably make a toilet in one corner of the cage and you can put a litter tray there. It helps keep the cage clean and dry and avoids too many stressful clean outs for them - you just empty the litter tray and spot clean when necessary.

It may not have been just removing the tubes that drove her frantic - if you did a cage clean at the same time that will have stressed her.

So general advice is - don't clean everything at the same time. It removes all her familiar scent and they scent mark everything in their cage. Partly to "claim" it and partly to find their way around, like a scent route - as they don't see well.

So best to do partial cleans. If you use a litter tray and have 3 to 4" substrate minimum (the more substrate, the less often it needs changing) you can just spot clean for quite a few weeks - ie take out the odd handful of substrate and replace it with a cleanhandful and mix it in. Don't worry about removing every single poop - they are not dirty or smelly = they are like little seeds - sometimes they eat them - which is normal - theyhave two stomachs and can redigest extra vitamins. Sometimes they hoard them,especially if theyfeel anxious that food may run short. So if you find a neat little pile of poops don't take it out just yet - it may be her emergency food store!

When our hammy was a baby he always pooped in his food bowl after removing all the food!

As they get older they get slightly more refined habits, especially re peeing and will tend to only pee in the one chosen toilet place, so the cage does stay clean and dry longer. Most of them pee in their wheels, so you can just clean the wheel out as and when necessary, but no need to be fanatical about keeping it super clean. In fact our last hammy would abandon his wheel after I'd cleaned it and I used to have to tempt him back into it by putting treats in it.

So cleaning - spot clean mostly, when you do change all the substrate (it can go 6 to 8 weeks easily with enough substrate and a litter tray), then keep back some of the clean old substrate and mix it in with the new or sprinkle it on top of the new, so it still smells familiar.

Do the wheel a different week, and toys a different week again. Avoid removing their nest unless it's soiled.

Don't move things around in the cage. Adding something new is usually accepted well. Taking something away causes a big fuss. So only do that if absolutely necessary eg for safety or access reasons. Moving things around stresses them.

You may need to move the odd thing a bit to fit a larger house in, but that will probably be accepted because she will like the house. If it has a tunnel entrance she will probably move straight in.

So put a big pile of nesting material out in the cage (not in the house). Torn up strips of plain white toilet paper are best. No fluffy bedding as it's dangerous - if you have that it needs removing straight away. She will pouch or take some strips of paper andbuild or rebuild her nest - and gradually keep adding to it to refurbish it - so the pile will gradually go down. And you can top it up now and then.

This may help settle her for now, if she has a nice big dark house with a tunnel entrance, but I suggest upgrading her fairly soon (not right now, give her chance to settle) so something with a good sized floor area so she can have normal behaviours. Unless you already have a cage that is 80 x 50 of course. I think the Savic Sky has external tubes going over the top.

The basics they need are - a good depth of substrate to bury hoards, dig in etc. Somewhere dark to retreat to - if a house is too small they sometimes nest under a shelf. A shelf to sit on and under. Easy access to food and water (so ramps need to be stable and secure). Plenty of variety, hidey places, tunnels etc in the cage to provide enrichmeent - places to go, things to do, different levels and textures. And a wheel that is big enough to run with a straight back. For a Syrian most people use an 11" diameter wheel.

The main reason for the cage needing to be a good size is at night, when they are most active and can't come out.

If your current cage is quite tall then she could climb to the roof (they can monkey bar across the roof and then drop) looking for a way out, and fall and get injured. So it's another reason for deepish substrate, to cushion any falls, and put any hard items under a shelf so they can't be landed on. But if it is tall you may need to adjust the shelves to make one level that is almost a full level, until you upgrade her.

If you post a photo of the cage we can suggest how to adjust things for now.