Stressed or exploring?

Kyrkogrimr · 10-20-2019, 01:52 AM

Cadmium generally seems happy, she explores, she's eating well (a huge fan of meal worms) she loves digging and playing with tunnels and bendy bridges, runs kn her wheel...

But I've noticed her also trying to climb the glass sides of.her cage. If she didn't seem to be enjoying herself generally, I'd be wondering if she was doing the equivalent of bar chewing, but she does this no matter how I set up the cage, no matter how deep the substrate is, so I was wondering if she's just exploring or possibly reacting to her reflection? Should I be worried?

Dalis_mum · 10-20-2019, 02:19 AM

Is she paddling at the glass incessantly or simply for a few seconds? Eddie is in a glas Viv and very occasionally have a quick test of the walls before going about his day, but on the converse I've seen hamsters that simply don't like being in a tank and will paddle at the glass constantly without pause as a stereotypic behaviour, this is the tank equivalent to non-stop bar chewing in may opinion.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they would be better ina barred cage either though. My original hamster when returning to keep hamsters bar chewed and paddled. She just wasn't ever going to settle unless she was running free in the wild (this didn't happen, I just did everything I could to keep her safe from herself and happy).

Can I ask the dimensions of the tank?

Kyrkogrimr · 10-20-2019, 03:12 AM

Hi, she's in a detolf, so it's 900 or 950 sq inches of floor space iirc.

She doesn't paddle at the glass all day and all night, and she'll go several days without doing it, but she does it for several seconds and might do it multiple times in a day when she gets started, does that make sense?