My hamster escaped at night!!

[lonesnowball]

I woke up today my my father saying it's a snake!! Then he said its you're hamster!! My first thought was that a snake came in and ate my robo. But when I went to go check, my hamster was just sitting outside my brother's closet. I was so confused... I tried to catch him by putting some food on my hand, and cupping him when he crawled on to eat. He ran away as soon as I would lift the other hand. He finally ran into my room behind his cage. We caught him by putting some food in his hamster ball and we finally caught him when he climbed in. I am pretty sure he crawled out by pushing the top off. We have a bar cage, but he cant fit through the bars. We also didnt clasp the top shut since it is kind of heavy and we thought he could never push it up. I am also pretty sure that he wasnt gone for long because I woke up at about 5:30 to go to the restroom and I heard him munching in his cage. We caught him at around 7:00. My brother also mentioned that he heard him squealing alot. My hamster rarely squeals. Hopefully he didnt get stuck anywhere, or eat random toxic things. Im am keeping an eye out for any strange behaviour. What do you think is the reason he got out. He had to try, it couldnt have been an accident. Also, when I put him in the cage, he was drinling alot of water. He had acsess to food outside the cage because his pouch was stuffed. But he didnt have acsess to water. We found him in a closet full of my dad's building tools and we know there can be very toxic chemicals on there.Hopefully he is alright.

[Esmy]

Glad you got him back! I'm sure he'll be fine. He just went on a little adventure. lol What kind of cage did he escape from?

[cookiemonster88]

the second hamster i had made it out of my room, across the landing, down the stairs and into the lounge. he squeezed behind a cabinet and pulled up the carpet to make a nest. he was fine, i'm sure yours will be to. hamsters aren't silly

[ianpallen]

If you look on youtube at hamster escapes, there are loads of vids where hamsters escape through the roof door of a wired cage. Some are clever and use their teeth as a lever when the door is shut properly. If a door is just resting on the catch, it does not take much to crawl out.
A hamster will always try to get out to have a scout around. They smell stuff before eating and wont eat anything that smells bad ot tastes horrible.

[Kingcloudis]

Glad he is back! My hamster escaped and was living under my bathroom sink for 48 hours. Let just say I didn't sleep well.

[Pebbles82]

I would definitely close the door fully in future! Also I have read of people using a small padlock on it! Glad he is safe and sound. I would worry if ours escaped as we have floorboards and a chimeny behind a gas fire and although I've blocked up holes he would no doubt find one I haven't or get stuck up the chimney, and have to wait for santa!

[DanniDorrito]

I had a hamster who was a master escape artist, never had one as adamant as he was. In the 3 years we had him I must have gotten through about 10 different cages. Wire, glass, plastic.. you name it, he could get out of it. That little guy was a genius, shame he used his intelligence for evil, I miss that little guy.

I would keep a bucket in my room with treats/food and anything which smelled good and knew my hamster loved, I'd have lots of books stacked up by the bucket like a staircase. So when my hamster did manage to escape I would wake up in the morning with him asleep in the bucket.

You should definitely try the bucket trick next time your hammy goes on an adventure, they will get hungry at some point and its one of the best and safest ways to catch them.

Once they get a taste for escape its like they become obsessed with it, your hammy will more than likely try the same place again so be sure to secure it!

[SprinkleHamster]

Our little Athena has been living up to her namesake. She chewed a hole in her bin cage air holes. She escaped on Wednesday and we thankfully found her hiding in the closet behind my stepson's lego bin having chewed several holes in his camp sweatshirt. Well we thought we had figured out how she got out, and secured it. We hadn't realized that she had gnawed her way out of the cage in the back, where we couldn't easily see it. She ended up adventuring into the kitchen. We found her underneath the refrigerator. She scampered deeper in and began moving with the fridge when we move it out to get her!!! I ended up having to take the back of the fridge off to get her and put it back together before school Thursday morning. That little scamp of a hammy!! Now she is in a smaller cage connected with tubes to a even smaller cage. We are looking at getting a glass aquarium now. As we know the tubes and cages she has are to small for her and her rather large antics.