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Pebbles82 · 05-04-2016, 02:36 AM

I think it might have been a reaction to the cage clean

Our hamster will go very reclusive after a cage clean and needs a couple of weeks sometimes to go back to normal. They tend to guard their nest and hoard if their scent has gone from the cage and if everything smells different they're not sure if their environment is the same or maybe a predator has been in there!

But then it sounds like you've had her for a while and she has presumably had cage cleans before. In which case, maybe she is just slowing down with age. I thought our hamster was slowing down with age and then he suddenly started acting like a younger hamster again! But that was after a change of cage. At first he was reclusive and then enjoyed exploring all the extra space and using his new wheel more than his old one.

So change can really affect them. Sometimes one cage clean can affect them more than another, depending on whether the nest or the hoard needed to be removed.

So can you think of any recent changes, or anything that might have been different with the cage clean?

05-04-2016, 02:36 AM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: new to hamsters - 'strange' behavior I think it might have been a reaction to the cage clean Our hamster will go very reclusive after a cage clean and needs a couple of weeks sometimes to go back to normal. They tend to guard their nest and hoard if their scent has gone from the cage and if everything smells different they're not sure if their environment is the same or maybe a predator has been in there! But then it sounds like you've had her for a while and she has presumably had cage cleans before. In which case, maybe she is just slowing down with age. I thought our hamster was slowing down with age and then he suddenly started acting like a younger hamster again! But that was after a change of cage. At first he was reclusive and then enjoyed exploring all the extra space and using his new wheel more than his old one. So change can really affect them. Sometimes one cage clean can affect them more than another, depending on whether the nest or the hoard needed to be removed. So can you think of any recent changes, or anything that might have been different with the cage clean?