Keeping them entertained!

[ayemee]

Hello!

I was just wondering what sort of toys/boredom breakers your hamsters love? Treats too!

I have tried my syrian Nova with log bridges, chews, hanging toys, and a wooden log to hide forage in. She will entertain it for about 1 night then totally ignore it. I can't find anything she loves longer than a day except whimzee chews which she adores.

I understand all hamsters will like different things but I'm after some inspiration. Her new alaska cage is arriving this week so I'm looking to treat her to some new things to fill it

[candycakes75]

My hamster LOVES willow balls. I will usually put a small treat in it, and he has so much fun pushing it around trying to get the treat out

[ayemee]

Originally Posted by candycakes75

My hamster LOVES willow balls. I will usually put a small treat in it, and he has so much fun pushing it around trying to get the treat out

Brilliant idea! Thank you. She does enjoy dragging and rolling things around. She drags around her whimzees from her bed, then when she goes to sleep drags it back

[greysome]

It's not unusual for hammies to be all about X one day and then suddenly couldn't care less the next. Or ignore something for weeks/months only to suddenly discover their sudden deep and undying (okay, they're fickle creatures...they're just as likely to lose interest in it the second you decide they can keep it) love for whatever it is you decide to take away from them since they've been ignoring it.

One of my hammies (Hazel Nut) is huge on hanging toys (that is, once she gets interested in it)--she once demolished a huge hanging toy geared towards rabbits in a couple of hours when she was particularly...erm...frisky. The thing had 3 huge willow/sisal/grass-mat thingy balls, each of which were bigger than her--possibly bigger than two of her each-- and stood probably about a foot altogether and after about two or three months of ignoring it--BOOM! I found myself needing to go through and pick up what was left of any pieces of willow and she had dragged quite a bit of hay and bedding/tissues over to nest in the middle of the massacre (Hazel Nut apparently has a sadistic streak in her)

My robo Patch loves loves loves tunnels--particularly ones that are "above" ground, so to speak.....I made her a hanging second level out of Popsicle sticks and toilet paper rolls on one part of her cage and if she isn't running around/climbing there, she's running through the tunnels/bridges in the maze-ish second level/platform I made for the other side/second bin (she's in two bins connected with tubes). Two of my syrians don't particularly care one way or another for tunnels (actually, Chublet will ignore it all together) while the third seems to like having a maze-like situation in part of his cage though he doesn't seem to care for tunnels either. To some degree they all seem to like climbing but the one with the maze-fascination seems to particularly like climbing/exploring the grapevine log and jungle gym in his cage. Actually, the quickest way for me to see if he likes something or not is to put it near/on his little jungle gym and see if he ignores it or comes back to it after his first round on the gym.

Something they all go nuts over is when I hide things--usually a little bit of food as well as some extra seeds/grains) in toilet paper rolls and 'fold' the ends of the tube. They'll toss it around to try and get some of the smaller seeds to fall out (the millets, chia seeds and what not) and then they'll chew through to get to the larger stuff inside. Occasionally, I'll stuff some toilet paper in there for them to nest with as well. I tried stuffing it with a little hay but other than Hazel Nut (who loves her hay), the others didn't seem interested. I think the smell of the hay overshadowed the seeds/treats in there. All of them also seem a bit curious to things that make noise (even better if, like with the seeds in toilet rolls, they can tear it apart and eat as well) though to varying degrees.

For treats, they like their occasional chickpea...or tofu...or mealworm....All of the hammies here love those mini corn on the cob things (you can also microwave them to make popcorn), rice pops/sticks (or was it popped rice?) and of course they all love their whimzees and/or doggie biscuit.

[Bertiebobbins]

I try and change things up for Nibble every couple of days so he has something extra to think about, I leave his cage the same of course but I might add say an extra tube for a night then remove it in the morning, scatter feed him one night to keep him busy, I leave his playtime area basically the same but one area I change every night so he has something new to think about. I find this works better than giving him toys as he seems mostly to ignore them all!

From experience, I find the same general rule of thumb applies to hams as does to small children - you can spend all the money you like trying to entertain them, but they are more likely to play with the box!!

Nibble's enduring favourite in his cage is his network of sputniks - he has two rat sized ones hung from the ceiling of his cage (he has an Alaska too by the way) and I've connected them with those bendy plastic tubes so he can go up from the shelf into the first one, through to the second and down from that one into his sand bath on the shelf. He can also reach the bars from each Sputnik aswell so he likes to hang out in them and beg for treats!

[ayemee]

Thank you for the ideas! That's true. I don't want to keep buying her different things if she's not going to be interested. I'm looking at buying her a shelf and hanging stuff because I've heard the alaska is quite tall. She enjoys watching me from a little perching spot. Pulling a cute face and begging for a treat.

I can't wait for the new cage to arrive!

[Tildauk]

You will probably need quite a few things hanging in the alaska so there isn't a massive drop anywhere she can hurt herself on

[ayemee]

Yeah I've got two new platforms for it