Bean Goes Walkabout
Bean, my Syrian hamster wees on his wheel. Often. Not always.
His wee is no problem when it’s in his sandbox, but when coating his wheel, it’s a bit… redolent.
I thought I might encourage him to stop this habit, by replacing his weed-on wheel with a smaller, less wonderful wheel. Maybe he’d figure out that when he didn’t wee on it, the good wheel stayed, but when he did, the good wheel went away. I figured it’d work best if I exchanged wheels as soon as I noticed he’d weed - which would be when I got up in the night. (To wee. But not on a wheel.)
I also decided I’d tart up his home by adding some fabric behind the back of his bin. I just jammed it between his bin and the wall. I was cautious to not let any fabric hang down into his bin just in case he might use it to climb out. Looked fine.
A couple of nights later, as I passed his bin, my nose noticed he’d weed on his wheel. I removed it from his bin and put it in the far corner of the room, then replaced it with the smaller wheel as planned. (Since he was evidently unable to climb out of his bin, I didn’t need a bin lid. So changing out the wheels was easy.) Bean seemed to be having a nap under the substrate, as I couldn’t see him anywhere.
A while after I’d gone back to bed, I heard him running on his wheel. “Why, that cheap wheel is as quiet as the expensive wheel; perhaps I wasted my money,” I thought, as I fell back to sleep.
The hours passed and I eventually awakened and got up to greet “the boys” (Bean and Oreo). Bean’s substitute wheel was clean. (Yay!) Oreo was ready for breakfast, but Bean was…. not there. Not there??? Not there!!! Aaack! It was a 38” (97cm) drop from his bin-top to the carpet! (Or possibly a 14” + 26” compound drop, depending on what route he took.)
I looked in his favourite hiding spots in the bathroom and kitchen. No Bean. I thought, “If he’s behind the fridge or dishwasher, this could get interesting.” I was searching the main living area, when he peeked out from the corner where I’d put his (wee covered) wheel.
It was the wee-ly expensive wheel that I’d been hearing after I'd gone back to bed. He must have already been ‘at large’ when I’d changed out the wheels. He probably thought I was being particularly kind to hand-deliver his favourite wheel to him as he was exploring. Little wretch. We’re lucky I didn’t step on him.
He was (and is) fine, no damage I could see. My guess is, he managed to hook a bit of the fabric with his claw, and was able to pull himself up to the edge of the bin. From there, he probably fell into a box of files, thence, a 2 foot plus drop to the floor. What an adventurer!
The upshot is that, since I’m not completely certain how he managed to escape, I can’t be so cavalier about leaving the lid off his bin. I took down the fabric. I thought I could move his house a titch farther from the bin wall, but I read somewhere that hamsters have been known to shove stuff around their bins to make it easier to climb out. Clever critters. (And hardy, too!)
So that was Bumble Bean’s Big Adventure.
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