Quote:
Originally Posted by Serendipity7000
It's always a good idea to wash your hands in between handling hamsters anyway - it avoids one catching something from the other (which can happen) but yes she would have smelled the other hamster's scent. That might be part of it but I think it's more to do with her not being settled yet or tamed, and having a hand in the cage. They can get quite territorial and feel threatened. Also use very plain soap when washing your hands - no honey scented or flowery soaps or they can bite thinking you're food.
What cage is she in? Our first syrian was like this at first and hated a hand in his cage. It was actually cage rage. He was in an awful badly ventilated rotostak thing with top opening. Once I upgraded him to a single larger, barred cage he was like a different hamster.
For now I would put the food out when she's asleep and avoid putting your hand in the cage at any other time, until she has fully acclimatised to the cage (it can take a good two weeks without moving or changing anything or cleaning anything).
So it sounds like a combination of - smelling the other hamster in her territory, especially when she's still quite new to the cage - a hand in the cage and possibly the cage itself not being right? But that depends what cage you have. And possibly the soap?
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Thank you! I didn't think my hand would have been the problem since she is very calm tame when I do pick her up, and when I have had my hand in the cage to feed/move anything, she follows my hand but doesn't nibble or flinch or anything. I had figured since she seemed calm and it had been a few days that I was ok to start taming, but maybe this was her sign that it had been bothering her even if she wasn't showing it much.
This is the cage she has
It's 32x19x18 inches (81x48x46 cm) so as far as I know this is a fairly good choice for hamsters? Although I know there are better, and I wish I had the space for something even bigger.