Hamster Central - View Single Post

Pebbles82 · 07-19-2019, 01:53 AM

I think it sounds like the heat as well. The sitting out in the open and on the plastic etc. As for the skittishness - did anything happen just before this? A cage clean can cause that - especially if clean absolutely everything as it removes their familiar scent, sets back taming and you become an untrusted thief! Temporarily. If it is that, then best to only do partial cleans, and they don't need doing weekly as pet shops advise. By that it means - when you change the substrate, keep back half of it that is not whiffy and mix it in with the new, so it still smells familiar - and don't clean anything else. Another week you can do the wheel, another week any toys etc.

I actually find a robo much easier because they will often have more than one nest and ours has never pee'd in his nests (he made lovely cosy underground "hole" burrows all lined with paper

). They tend to pee everywhere else though, but because it's such tiny amounts and spread around I found it evaporated mostly! If you find a wet or whiffy patch of substrate though, you could "spot clean" it (ie take a handful out and put a new handful in). As and when necessary. I found spot cleaning quite hard with a robo as I could never see where he'd pee'd - but they will often use their sand bath as a toilet (ours does his poops in there) so then you just change the sand once a week eg (must be Chinchilla bathing sand and not "dust").

So you should be able to go a few weeks without doing a substrate change, if there's enough substrate in to start with.

The other thing is, changing all the substrate destroys their tunnels and burrows - sometimes it's necessary of course, but if done too often they can get very upset. What I did with our robo was only do half the cage at a time - he had two nests - one under his shelf on the right and one in front of his wheel on the left (both underground).

So I would only change the substrate on one side, and try to retain most of the nest itself. He would move into the other nest. Then when I did the other side, a week or two later - he woud move back into the first nest

It worked out as a good system!

Would suggest not changing/moving anything in the cage or cleaning out for a couple of weeks now (except the odd wipe of the wheel when necessary but even that can easily go a week or more). And let her settle again and get back into comfortable habits. Then start again with the hand taming/feeding.

Adding more substrate or a new toy etc is usually accepted well. Taking something out or moving something isn't always accepted well.

07-19-2019, 01:53 AM
Pebbles82 Hamster Antics Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 23,533	Re: My Strange Roborovski I think it sounds like the heat as well. The sitting out in the open and on the plastic etc. As for the skittishness - did anything happen just before this? A cage clean can cause that - especially if clean absolutely everything as it removes their familiar scent, sets back taming and you become an untrusted thief! Temporarily. If it is that, then best to only do partial cleans, and they don't need doing weekly as pet shops advise. By that it means - when you change the substrate, keep back half of it that is not whiffy and mix it in with the new, so it still smells familiar - and don't clean anything else. Another week you can do the wheel, another week any toys etc. I actually find a robo much easier because they will often have more than one nest and ours has never pee'd in his nests (he made lovely cosy underground "hole" burrows all lined with paper ). They tend to pee everywhere else though, but because it's such tiny amounts and spread around I found it evaporated mostly! If you find a wet or whiffy patch of substrate though, you could "spot clean" it (ie take a handful out and put a new handful in). As and when necessary. I found spot cleaning quite hard with a robo as I could never see where he'd pee'd - but they will often use their sand bath as a toilet (ours does his poops in there) so then you just change the sand once a week eg (must be Chinchilla bathing sand and not "dust"). So you should be able to go a few weeks without doing a substrate change, if there's enough substrate in to start with. The other thing is, changing all the substrate destroys their tunnels and burrows - sometimes it's necessary of course, but if done too often they can get very upset. What I did with our robo was only do half the cage at a time - he had two nests - one under his shelf on the right and one in front of his wheel on the left (both underground). So I would only change the substrate on one side, and try to retain most of the nest itself. He would move into the other nest. Then when I did the other side, a week or two later - he woud move back into the first nest It worked out as a good system! Would suggest not changing/moving anything in the cage or cleaning out for a couple of weeks now (except the odd wipe of the wheel when necessary but even that can easily go a week or more). And let her settle again and get back into comfortable habits. Then start again with the hand taming/feeding. Adding more substrate or a new toy etc is usually accepted well. Taking something out or moving something isn't always accepted well.