The scent of other hamsters?

samincittagazze · 12-27-2011, 02:20 PM

Langly is a funny little thing. Every night we go through the same routine: she comes out, has cuddles for a few minutes, all nice and lovely. Then she starts to want to explore and run about. If I let her do this on the sofa next to me she's happy as anything, but if I pop her in the playpen to do so she runs straight back to me and begs to be picked up. I tried experimenting with letting her run on a separate piece of flooring this evening, and again she was quite content.

I figure it's either one of two things: a) she likes the comfort of me being there close to her, or b) the scent of the other hammies in the playpen bothers her. I've always had them share the same playpen though, and the others don't seem to mind one bit. I figure in the wild they would smell other creatures regularly, and obviously they all have their own secure cages which they have 'privacy' in. Anyone else experienced this?

Demecat · 12-27-2011, 02:23 PM

I always handle Messy first because if he smells Rory, he spits out hamster curses and is prone to bite!

Jodzie04 · 12-27-2011, 04:10 PM

I think that is so cute either way!
How lovely she likes to be near you =)

**kyrilliondaemon** · 12-27-2011, 04:31 PM

We find Scamp loves floor time, ball time, and cardboard box time, but hates run time. We put her in a run long before any of the others and she absolutely hated it, always has.

I used to think it was the comfort of us close that she wanted, but we recently found that she'll race off to explore quite happily, just doesn't want to be in a run. My current guess is that she just hates being in hamster-proof enclosed spaces.

She liked trying to climb out of the run until we got better at Scamp-proofing, but ever since we successfully Scamp-proofed it she's hated it, just finds a house/box and sulks unless we offer treats, then she gets those and returns to sulking.
Still loves large cardboard boxes though - enjoys exploring before starting on escape attempts lol
And she'll race away from us on the bed, or even the floor if we risk letting her down (hamster-proofing the flat is impossible), so she clearly doesn't have an issue with the smell of others, it really is that she wants to explore and hates being in a Scamp-proof space that isn't her cage.

Sorry this was so long, I was just trying to explain it all as best as I can incase it helped you see why I've reached my current guess about it.

Not sure if this helps much, but you asked if anyone else had experienced anything like this and I thought it was relatively similar.

samincittagazze · 12-28-2011, 01:31 AM

Demecat - really?! I never have that problem with my boys, not sure whether it's because I have 4 boys of 3 different species, and the two hybrids are old and not bothered anyway!

Jodzie - She is exceptionally cute and clingy too me. She was a very timid hamster when I got her, but now she's my sweetest cuddle-bum.

Kyrillion - I see what you're saying, yeah. My Maggie is certainly like this - she spends most playpen time trying to escape from it! But I'm not sure it's true of Langly: I give my hammies freerange time in the kitchen and she HATES that, just runs straight back up to me where I sit in the doorway. I think she's just an odd little thing.

Peachesmum · 12-28-2011, 02:28 AM

I'm aiming to use Peaches' old cage as her playpen, but she seems to hate it. Always seems to want to come out as soon as possible! Am planning to add soem more exciting toys to keep her interest...

**Pompompoms** · 12-28-2011, 07:45 AM

When Jam and The Cloud were alive, I had to be so thorough with my hand washing. If there was even a hint of Jam anywhere on me, The Cloud would go berserk and start tearing away at me. I had to manouver him out of my skin on many occasion my beautiful little horror

Demecat · 12-28-2011, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by samincittagazze

Demecat - really?! I never have that problem with my boys, not sure whether it's because I have 4 boys of 3 different species, and the two hybrids are old and not bothered anyway!

They don't recognise other species as still being hamsters. I have two syrians anyway and we all know how territorial they can be!

**LocoRocoPanda** · 12-28-2011, 08:04 AM

I pick up my hams in a particular order with Claudio being the first I pick up with all his moodiness. -.-

Cecil and Shisui actually like the smell of each other. Cecil won't like being out unless Shisui is having balltime. I think it's partly because I got them on the same day and partly because Cecil's cage is on top of Shisui's so they just have gotten used to each other so much. XD

MzWiz0915 · 12-28-2011, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demecat

They don't recognise other species as still being hamsters. I have two syrians anyway and we all know how territorial they can be!

Are you certain they don't? Because when I first got my male ww, Little Man, he used to get excited by my robo Pica's scent on my hands or the couch. He's since gotten over that. But now he's excited over my new syrian, Bonnie.

The funny thing is Bonnie is excited about him too...silly hamsters...