Female syrian never happy with cage

[Mara]

Hello!
I have never used this forum before so i apologize if anything turns out weird.

I have two syrian hamsters, an adult female and a baby male (separate of course). The male is so easy to entertain and can keep the same set up for weeks. The female, on the other hand never seems satisfied. She is constantly trying to get out, gnawing on the corners of her cage, trying to reach the lid and chews that too.

I have had her for about 5 months and she has always been like this. First she lived in a samla bin and it was definately not enough space. Always jumping on the walls and biting the lid and i though that she just wanted more space so we started making her a bigger cage.

Right now she lives in a diy cage made from ikea stuva desks. It is about 9000 square cm or 1350 square inches i believe, which is the largest cage i can fit into my room.
I let her out every single day for about 2-3 hours into a play pen that is 100x75 cm. I rearrange it every day so she always has something new to discover but it does not seem to work. After about 10 minutes in the play pen she tries digging out or jumping at the walls.

In her cage she has several hides, cork logs, branches, rocks, big sand bath, big wheel, a lot of dirt to dig in, plenty of chews, i scatter all her food as well as herbs.
There is already a huge hole in the corner and im afraid she will destroy the cage, if she continues like this i will have to move her back to the samla bin..

I feel like i have tried everything, is there anything i can do?
I would love any suggestions.. getting kinda desperate :/ thanks for reading

[Maggiehammy]

This sounds like a really difficult situation. I wonder if she is doing this these things for some underlying cause. This could possibly be learned behaviour which she is exhibiting despite technically having everything she needs. If you are worried about her damaging herself chewing the cage as a temporary measure you could use bendy bridges around the perimeter just so she is chewing wood and not the cage or woven mats (made from sea grass I think). I hope someone here can give you some more permanent advice. Good luck!

[Mara]

Thank you very much, she has only chewed one corner yet and i put a bendy bridge there and it has worked so far, i have some spare rocks for the other corners if she starts there too.

[Shannonmcn]

Some ladies are just made to want freedom at all costs I think. Mine is trying to chew her way through my window frame 4-5 times a night. Interrupted typing this to pull her away from shredding the wallpaper. I had another girl a few years ago who was the same.

I think you just do your best to make sure they don't hurt themselves or do damage to expensive things tbh. I think preventing her from ruining a cage is priority 1. I don't know what she's getting her teeth into with the Stuva but you could use additional bits of wood to flush the surfaces so there's no edge or to just create a barrier. Might be a bit more sturdy than the bendy bridges. If you post a pic of the damage we might be able to brainstorm something.

Can you free roam her in a bedroom or a hallway? Playpens we're always just things to be chewed out of in my experience.

[Mara]

On the sides of the cage there are small holes but i thought she wouldn't chew them.. yeah that was a mistake..

I do not think she would be able to chew through the play pen, it is made form a pretty thick material (pax warderobe from ikea but split off in the middle). I used to free roam her in my room but that didn't work too well either, she got stressed and bored so she chewed on the furniture and ripped the wallpaper off the wall.
She can not be i any room exept mine because we have cats but thank you for the suggestion

[Creampuff]

I know what you mean; my female syrian (well, actually she's just a cousin to the syrian hamster but basically same thing) hammy also chews bars (although she sort of stopped that) but she seems bored even though she has toys. She also acts like she's half-monkey; she climbs all over her cage on her bars and sometimes she even goes on top of her water bottle or her wheel. Don't know why she does this.... Hamsters are very mysterious creatures.