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Pebbles82 · 03-25-2016, 04:54 AM

Hello

The routine will develop over time. Initially your hamster may need a bit of hand taming. For the first two or three days it's best to leave them alone in their cage so they can scent mark everything and find their way around easily and choose somewhere to build a nest. Then you can feed them the odd treat through the bars, talking to them gently - they get used to the sound of your voice which helps. Then you can move on to having a treat on the palm of your hand, just inside the entrance to the cage and see if the hamster walks onto your hand to take it (they may and then skedaddle off again

. I'm not sure how old your hamster is - or if it's a baby. If a baby or not very tame, then you could move onto taming. The dry bathtub is a good placing for taming. You can transport your hamster there by letting them walk into a tube or hamster ball. If you use a tube (eg kitchen roll inner tube), put one end in the cage and the other end in the hamster ball and let the hamster walk through the tube into the ball, then pop the lid on the ball and gently carry it to the bathtub, gently put it down in the bathtub and take the lid off it. Putting some towels on the bottom of the bath can help cushion things a bit, and put the tube and a couple of toys (eg a ceramic mug on its side) in there, so they have somewhere to hide or some interest.

Generally they just slither up and down the side of the bathtub in an attempt to get out, but it is a safe place for them to get used to being handled without falling and hurting themselves (before they are tame they can wriggle free very efficiently and can fall, or 'ping' which is leap about 2 feet in the air and fall. I've added a little video at the bottom about how we tamed ours in the bathtub - with help from this forum! He wasn't tame at all when we got him and quite ferral!

Anyway - a general routine, once your hamster is handleable - varies depending on the personality of the hamster. Ours is a lazy old man and likes being cosy. He sleeps all day until about midnight, when he comes out in his cage and has a rare old time at night. So we got him in the habit of being woken around 6 to 8pm (whichever time is most convenient) by putting food and water out at that time rather noisily, and giving him some out of cage time at that time. This is something our RSPCA handbook recommended for children to have contact time with hamsters. I've found that ours is pretty active before 8pm, but will be quite docile and dozy between 8pm and 10pm. Sometimes they are still up in the mornings and you see them before they go to sleep for the day.

That's Syrian hamsters anyway. Dwarf hamsters I believe can be awake during the day sometimes as well. Some Syrian hamsters will be awake earlier and wanting to come out.

I try and give ours some out of cage time every day, so he keeps used to being handled, but every 2 or 3 days is fine if they're not that bothered about coming out of the cage. If they are in a good sized cage they are sometimes quite happy in there, and then the main reason for out of cage time is to keep up tameness and handling.

You can also have a playpen area for out of cage time when they are tame. I've added my playpen video as well - the one we have is just shown around the cage on the video so I could let him pop in and out of the cage sometimes, but you can set it up bigger as well. They always need supervising in a playpen as they are great escape artists!

In terms of owner routines

1) I put about a tablespoon of hamster food in the bowl about every second day (tipping out any leftover food in the bowl). If the bowl is empty though I always put a tablespoonful in. Most of this gets hoarded, some gets eaten.

2) Rinse out and change the water in the bottle/s every day.

3) I also put out a small piece of veg each day along with the food and water bottle change - about thumbnail sized - broccoli, carrot, cucumber, baby corn, cauliflower usually - I try and vary it so it's a different one each day - it can be cooked or raw, so if you've had carrots for dinner, you can save a bit for the hammy - but plain cooked/boiled - no gravy or sauces. I put the veg in a different place to the food bowl (in his sputnik usually) or you can have a different little dish for the veg somewhere else in the cage - I find it makes him get out and about a bit rather than being lazy! For a baby hamster you would maybe only give them veg every 2 or 3 days at first to make sure their tummies are ok with it.

4) No cleaning for the first two weeks - they need that time to familiarise themselves with the cage and scent mark so it feels like home. Their poops are not dirty - they are like little black seeds. Sometimes they eat them, which is normal - they have two stomachs and can re-absorb vitamins from the little seed poops. Sometimes they poop in their foodbowl (probably fear of there not being enough food at some point) - ours did this when he was a baby but then stopped doing it. Don't take the poops away from the food bowl or they will feel robbed!

5) Pee - they tend to choose a corner of the cage as a wee corner/toilet. Using a potty litter tray is a good idea. They tend to be corner shaped - you put it in the wee corner with some chinchilla bathing sand in it and put a little bit of the wee-soaked substrate on top so it still smells like the wee corner, and they tend to just use it - then you just empty the potty and clean and refill it every 4 or 5 days and the rest of the cage could stay quite dry and clean. If no potty, then you can spot clean the wee corner during the first couple of weeks if it gets a bit whiffy - but I wouldn't do it until at least a week has gone by. ie take a handful or two of the wet smelly stuff out and put a new handful or two of clean substrate in and mix it in a bit.

6) General cage cleaning - Hamsters can get very stressed by full cage cleans - it removes their scent trails and they think a predator has invaded their home! They are also very precious about their nest and it is best to not remove the nest unless it has been wee'd in and then try and leave part of the nest that isn't wet even if it's slightly whiffy - and put lots of new white torn up toilet paper out in a heap somewhere in the cage so they can rebuild the nest. I've also added Erin's Hamsters cage cleaning tips video which I found extremely helpful as our hamster was a nervous wreck over cage cleans and Erin's method made sense and worked well. The basics of it being - don't clean everything at the same time and leave part of the old substrate behind when adding new. I'd say the number one helpful thing is a potty litter tray - our cage stays clean and dry as our hamster uses his potty - and apart from cleaning the potty, I just spot clean about once a week and check his hoards and only do a big/partial clean about once every three months.

They are quite clean little things really, but sometimes will get into abnormal behaviours if their habitat is disturbed too much. So for example if you take all of their hoards away, they could start weeing on their food (as a deterrant to predators). So when spot cleaning it's ok to leave any dried food in the hoard there. Any fresh veg that hasn't been eaten needs taking out (but ours usually eats anything fresh straight away). If you do have to remove some of their hoard (eg if they have wee'd in the nest and the hoard underneath has got wet) then always replace it with new food in the same place.

This is for Syrian hamsters - dwarf hamsters have slightly different habits and routines. Hope this helps! Generally - they sort themselves out - they can move substrate around into big heaps sometimes if they feel like it and ours has occasionally cleaned out his own house by chucking a load of old substrate out through the door for me to take away

and then he takes new substrate or bedding from the cage into his house.

It's quite important that they have somewhere dark as a hide to build a nest - usually a house - and the house needs to be big enough for a good sized nest. If they don't like the house for some reason (too small, not dark enough or some little foible) they sometimes build a nest under a shelf. I put a tunnel over the entrance of our hamsters house as it makes it nice and dark inside, and also like houses with flat, lift off roofs - that way you can check inside without having to take the house out and their nest falling apart. Or you can make a hide/house out of a shoe box with a hole cut in for a door. Either upturned, or the rightway up with the lid as a lift-off roof and cut the floor out.

They should always have a house that is open underneath and directly on the substrate as they like to hoard under their nest, plus houses with floors in get smelly and unhygienic and things can go mouldy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyEme2xcq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvXJ-Jbo0CM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jVnEjrXbww

The first priority is a cage or tank that is big enough. RSPCA minimum recommended size for a Syrian is about 80cm by 50cm. I personally feel 100cm cage is better and then you are never likely to need to upgrade

03-25-2016, 04:54 AM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: Your hamster routine Hello The routine will develop over time. Initially your hamster may need a bit of hand taming. For the first two or three days it's best to leave them alone in their cage so they can scent mark everything and find their way around easily and choose somewhere to build a nest. Then you can feed them the odd treat through the bars, talking to them gently - they get used to the sound of your voice which helps. Then you can move on to having a treat on the palm of your hand, just inside the entrance to the cage and see if the hamster walks onto your hand to take it (they may and then skedaddle off again . I'm not sure how old your hamster is - or if it's a baby. If a baby or not very tame, then you could move onto taming. The dry bathtub is a good placing for taming. You can transport your hamster there by letting them walk into a tube or hamster ball. If you use a tube (eg kitchen roll inner tube), put one end in the cage and the other end in the hamster ball and let the hamster walk through the tube into the ball, then pop the lid on the ball and gently carry it to the bathtub, gently put it down in the bathtub and take the lid off it. Putting some towels on the bottom of the bath can help cushion things a bit, and put the tube and a couple of toys (eg a ceramic mug on its side) in there, so they have somewhere to hide or some interest. Generally they just slither up and down the side of the bathtub in an attempt to get out, but it is a safe place for them to get used to being handled without falling and hurting themselves (before they are tame they can wriggle free very efficiently and can fall, or 'ping' which is leap about 2 feet in the air and fall. I've added a little video at the bottom about how we tamed ours in the bathtub - with help from this forum! He wasn't tame at all when we got him and quite ferral! Anyway - a general routine, once your hamster is handleable - varies depending on the personality of the hamster. Ours is a lazy old man and likes being cosy. He sleeps all day until about midnight, when he comes out in his cage and has a rare old time at night. So we got him in the habit of being woken around 6 to 8pm (whichever time is most convenient) by putting food and water out at that time rather noisily, and giving him some out of cage time at that time. This is something our RSPCA handbook recommended for children to have contact time with hamsters. I've found that ours is pretty active before 8pm, but will be quite docile and dozy between 8pm and 10pm. Sometimes they are still up in the mornings and you see them before they go to sleep for the day. That's Syrian hamsters anyway. Dwarf hamsters I believe can be awake during the day sometimes as well. Some Syrian hamsters will be awake earlier and wanting to come out. I try and give ours some out of cage time every day, so he keeps used to being handled, but every 2 or 3 days is fine if they're not that bothered about coming out of the cage. If they are in a good sized cage they are sometimes quite happy in there, and then the main reason for out of cage time is to keep up tameness and handling. You can also have a playpen area for out of cage time when they are tame. I've added my playpen video as well - the one we have is just shown around the cage on the video so I could let him pop in and out of the cage sometimes, but you can set it up bigger as well. They always need supervising in a playpen as they are great escape artists! In terms of owner routines 1) I put about a tablespoon of hamster food in the bowl about every second day (tipping out any leftover food in the bowl). If the bowl is empty though I always put a tablespoonful in. Most of this gets hoarded, some gets eaten. 2) Rinse out and change the water in the bottle/s every day. 3) I also put out a small piece of veg each day along with the food and water bottle change - about thumbnail sized - broccoli, carrot, cucumber, baby corn, cauliflower usually - I try and vary it so it's a different one each day - it can be cooked or raw, so if you've had carrots for dinner, you can save a bit for the hammy - but plain cooked/boiled - no gravy or sauces. I put the veg in a different place to the food bowl (in his sputnik usually) or you can have a different little dish for the veg somewhere else in the cage - I find it makes him get out and about a bit rather than being lazy! For a baby hamster you would maybe only give them veg every 2 or 3 days at first to make sure their tummies are ok with it. 4) No cleaning for the first two weeks - they need that time to familiarise themselves with the cage and scent mark so it feels like home. Their poops are not dirty - they are like little black seeds. Sometimes they eat them, which is normal - they have two stomachs and can re-absorb vitamins from the little seed poops. Sometimes they poop in their foodbowl (probably fear of there not being enough food at some point) - ours did this when he was a baby but then stopped doing it. Don't take the poops away from the food bowl or they will feel robbed! 5) Pee - they tend to choose a corner of the cage as a wee corner/toilet. Using a potty litter tray is a good idea. They tend to be corner shaped - you put it in the wee corner with some chinchilla bathing sand in it and put a little bit of the wee-soaked substrate on top so it still smells like the wee corner, and they tend to just use it - then you just empty the potty and clean and refill it every 4 or 5 days and the rest of the cage could stay quite dry and clean. If no potty, then you can spot clean the wee corner during the first couple of weeks if it gets a bit whiffy - but I wouldn't do it until at least a week has gone by. ie take a handful or two of the wet smelly stuff out and put a new handful or two of clean substrate in and mix it in a bit. 6) General cage cleaning - Hamsters can get very stressed by full cage cleans - it removes their scent trails and they think a predator has invaded their home! They are also very precious about their nest and it is best to not remove the nest unless it has been wee'd in and then try and leave part of the nest that isn't wet even if it's slightly whiffy - and put lots of new white torn up toilet paper out in a heap somewhere in the cage so they can rebuild the nest. I've also added Erin's Hamsters cage cleaning tips video which I found extremely helpful as our hamster was a nervous wreck over cage cleans and Erin's method made sense and worked well. The basics of it being - don't clean everything at the same time and leave part of the old substrate behind when adding new. I'd say the number one helpful thing is a potty litter tray - our cage stays clean and dry as our hamster uses his potty - and apart from cleaning the potty, I just spot clean about once a week and check his hoards and only do a big/partial clean about once every three months. They are quite clean little things really, but sometimes will get into abnormal behaviours if their habitat is disturbed too much. So for example if you take all of their hoards away, they could start weeing on their food (as a deterrant to predators). So when spot cleaning it's ok to leave any dried food in the hoard there. Any fresh veg that hasn't been eaten needs taking out (but ours usually eats anything fresh straight away). If you do have to remove some of their hoard (eg if they have wee'd in the nest and the hoard underneath has got wet) then always replace it with new food in the same place. This is for Syrian hamsters - dwarf hamsters have slightly different habits and routines. Hope this helps! Generally - they sort themselves out - they can move substrate around into big heaps sometimes if they feel like it and ours has occasionally cleaned out his own house by chucking a load of old substrate out through the door for me to take away and then he takes new substrate or bedding from the cage into his house. It's quite important that they have somewhere dark as a hide to build a nest - usually a house - and the house needs to be big enough for a good sized nest. If they don't like the house for some reason (too small, not dark enough or some little foible) they sometimes build a nest under a shelf. I put a tunnel over the entrance of our hamsters house as it makes it nice and dark inside, and also like houses with flat, lift off roofs - that way you can check inside without having to take the house out and their nest falling apart. Or you can make a hide/house out of a shoe box with a hole cut in for a door. Either upturned, or the rightway up with the lid as a lift-off roof and cut the floor out. They should always have a house that is open underneath and directly on the substrate as they like to hoard under their nest, plus houses with floors in get smelly and unhygienic and things can go mouldy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyEme2xcq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvXJ-Jbo0CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jVnEjrXbww The first priority is a cage or tank that is big enough. RSPCA minimum recommended size for a Syrian is about 80cm by 50cm. I personally feel 100cm cage is better and then you are never likely to need to upgrade