Hiding and acting strange

[junebuggie]

My Syrian Blondie has been home from PetSmart for about a week now. A couple of days ago I upgraded her to a Detolf and most of her aggressive, anxious tendencies went away. I’ve marked down her routine pretty well. But today, I woke up to find her acting strangely.

She usually wakes up at about 9:30 at night, and by the time I wake up around 10 AM she’s fast asleep. She eats around 4-5 AM and runs on her wheel for hours and hours. Very normal hamster behavior.

Today I checked on her when I heard her moving her wheel around her cage. She is still wide awake at noon now and she keeps alternating between hiding under or behind her wheel and hiding behind a tissue box I’ve given her as an alternate house (she has a grass hut she typically sleeps in).

She seems really skittish too. I don’t know if this is normal hamster behavior or if I should be worried. The only things I can think of that I’ve done differently to cause her to act like this is I started feeding her a seed mix alongside her usual pellets, and her water bottle has been falling off the side of the cage ever since I moved her from a wire to a glass one, so I set up a bit of a contraption to keep the bottle upright until I can find a more permanent solution.

(I was having issues trying to attach the images to the post so I hope putting them in the post itself is okay.)

[Ria P]

Maybe she feels a bit exposed and needs more hiding places, cover to dive under when moving around the cage.
I'd put the bottle on a solid surface like a saucer or on top of a wooden house with a flat roof to stop it from falling over. You can make a bottle holder from a plastic bottle and weigh it down with pebbles or marbles.

She may need a bigger house to make a nest in. A shoe box works fine with the bottom cut out and a big enough entrance hole cut out.

[junebuggie]

Thank you so much for the suggestions!! I will make sure she has a bigger house to nest in and I will try that water bottle hack immediately.

[Pebbles82]

I think she just needs time to settle in. She has had two big changes. Firstly coming to you and then a cage upgrade a week later. Even without a cage upgrade it can take them a good two weeks to start developing confident behaviours in a cage. Also avoid any cage cleaning for a couple of weeks now while she's settling in and don't move things around or remove them. Adding new things is usually accepted ok.

I agree with adding more floor toys and hides so she feels more secure. I like the big cork log tunnels and a shoebox house would be good too. Keep an eye on the water bottle, that it is letting water out ok as it looks at a precarious angle! Some people stick the bottle to the inside of the glass with industrial velcro.