Hi, my daughter has had Twinkie about a month now but he still doesn't like to be handled, as in picked up - he acts really scared; jumps, rolls onto his back and plays dead for a split second before getting up and racing off. We're not sure if he's having us on though because when he's digging furiously where he shouldn't be, he doesn't even register that we've carefully picked him up behind his shoulders with our fingers and turned him around, or even moved him a good couple of feet away. He will happily crawl all over us during playtime (and I mean all over us), take treats from my daughter's fingers and has put his front paws on her to take treats too. He also tolerated sitting on her hand to prevent him from falling though this has only happened once or twice I think and only for a split second before he jumped down. It seems that it's on his terms whether he lets my daughter handle him or not. Daughter's 14 years, Twinkie's her second hamster. Our first hamster became hand tame very quickly, within a couple of weeks. We appreciate that all hammies are different, of course. Twinkie is now about 4 months old, he's a long-haired Syrian. (not the one in the photo - I've not got around to changing that yet)
She's tried sitting in the bath with him and we've had him out on the bathroom floor, and tonight let him roam about the hall and climb up and down a few stairs, purely for exercise as the bath is only small of course. This is why he has no objection to climbing all over us - he's used to that bit now.
Any tips on getting him hand tame, please, without him having a heart attack through fright
?!
I'll check back tomorrow as I'm logging off for tonight, but thank you in advance
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Handling a timid hamster
Re: Handling a timid hamster
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