Is my Syrian stressed

[LaurensHaven]

Hi. I really need some help. I have a 20 month old female Syrian. She is living in a living world eco habitat large. So she has about 1100 square inches of floor space. She also has about 20 cm of substrate possibly a bit more. She has tunnels, chews and hideouts. I scatter feed and make cardboard chews to hide treats in. She also comes out every day although only for short amount of time as she then starts digging up the carpet. Despite all of this she still seems to be stressed. She keeps trying to climb up the wall in one corner and chew the cardboard attached to the side of the cage. I am at a total loss as to what to do now. I’ve tried everything and it’s killing me that she might be unhappy. This is the biggest cage I could find bar a diy which is just not possible as I wouldn’t know where to start. Please help me. Is she stressed or bored? Or does she just like chewing something that has a bit of resistance so she can really sink her teeth in. Thank you.

[Maker]

I hope this reassures you.

I have a female Syrian hamster who is about 1year old.

She is in an Alaska cage.

She has everything you mention and a big wheel, I line the cage corners with straw mats, cork tunnels cut to fit the corner, hemp mat. She go nuts trying to get to the bars behind to chew, making holes in the matting and destroying cardboard in the way.

Out of the cage she runs around the floor but gets obsessed about the gap under the door and tries to rip up the carpet to get out. She also tries to climb and jump up the walls. She will climb up anything she can and desperately try to climb up what she can’t.

I stuff a safe old blanket under the door and she just loves digging and biting this, she closes her eyes and gets stuck in.

Girls are not quite as relaxed about life as boys.

In all honesty, and some might not like what I’m going to say; I don’t think any animal is happier in captivity than they would be in nature. Polo is a rescue and she is much better off now than in her first home but I don’t support breading for pets as I really don’t think we can truely make captive pets happy despite them not knowing any different.

It sounds like you are doing your best, I think everything you described is their natural response to having physical boundaries which wouldn’t exist in this way in nature.
We can only do our best for them.

[LaurensHaven]

Thank you for you response. I really am doing my best. And your right that’s it’s difficult in captivity. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one. She probably wouldn’t be happy if she had an entire room to herself. Thank you though. I’ll keep doing what I can to enrich her life. I just hope she’s at least a bit happy.