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Old 02-03-2020, 07:15 PM  
Sonic1366
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Oct 2018
Posts: 6
Default Cage Rage or Still Just Too New?

I adopted a new russian dwarf hamster on friday (currently monday) and I'm afraid her behavior might not be normal. Unfortunately, friday started out with several complications. At the pet store I picked out a cage that seemed perfect, it was more than big enough and really deep. I had the whole thing set up with the exact same bedding as the pet store, a large igloo, wheel, food dish and water bottle before I went back to get the hamster. She didn't bite when I first tried to take her out of the box and into her cage, but she tried scratching my hand.
Started out with normal hamster things, like exploring the cage, only to soon realize that even with a ton of bedding, she was too short to reach the water bottle (and even with enough bedding it would run the risk of her moving it all and never being able to reach.) The second problem was that she was too light to get the wheel to even budge. I thought it moved easily enough and it wasn't big enough for anything other than a dwarf so I have no idea what was wrong with it. After she calmed down and went into her igloo, I added a small, smooth, metal tin for her to stand on to reach her water and she managed to use it consistently just fine over the next few hours.
After 9pm, after all the pet shops had closed, the biggest and final problem arised: the gaps on the very top bars were too wide and she was already half way out of the cage. I put my hand in front of her and she backed up into the cage.
So I had to quickly find a new home at 10pm. The only place open with anything was Walmart with an absolute garbage cage. It's half the size of the original cage but has three levels connected by ramps.
At the moment it's a little crowded, I stuck both the original wheel she can't budge (since I wanted her to feel familiar with some things in the new cage) as well as the wheel the cage came with. While it's bigger than the cage the pet store uses, it's still not very big and she definitely needs a new space but it's only been 3 days and I didn't want to keep shuffling her between homes.

Now onto the potential cage rage, the common symptoms are:
Territorial: every time I've put my hand in or near the cage she's bitten me. When I try to offer food or a treat she seems more interested in trying to go after me than the food, but after how poorly she was moved from the last cage to this one, I don't blame her for being a little defensive.
Hoarding: She doesn't hoard the food the pet store was feeding her as it's littered across all 3 platforms (I plan to feed her a blend of the pet store's food and other kind that I'm currently trickling in) but she goes right for any of the new kind of food and hides it. She even stops to look at me before she does.
Chewing: She doesn't seem to obsessively chew on the cage. Just a little bit now and then. The plastics on the wheel and platforms have some nibble marks but nothing insinuating she's excessively chewing. She has a wooden stick from the cage in the pet store and 2 apple sticks that she a absolutely destroyed right away both times.
Climbing: She has levels to the cage, she climbs to get around. Nothing seems to be wrong here.
Guarding the entrances to the cage: I don't think she's entirely aware where those even are.

I plan on moving her to a nicer cage at some point, but is it worse to keep moving her between cages so suddenly or does she seem to have a bad case of cage rage? Or is it simply too soon to tell and I should give her a few more days (and ultimately get bitten a few more times when I offer her food).
I'm sorry this post was so long, but out of all the hamsters I've owned, this one has been the most complicated and I appreciate any input anyone has to offer.
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