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Grinewin · 10-11-2020, 04:23 PM

Hi! I've been lurking here for quite a while but I adopted my first hamster in about 15 years last month and finally have something to post about.

My hamster, Egg, is most likely a hybrid dwarf (she seems to be a pretty equal mix of the species and I've read most ww/rc dwarfs are in fact hybrids here in the US at this point). I adopted her three weeks ago from a shelter and she's living in a DIY cage that's just shy of 800 square inches. She's adapted to her new home very quickly and I didn't have to do any taming with her -- the first time I gingerly offered her a treat, she took it with no hesitation and then proceeded to climb all over my hand. I now handle her with no issues daily. She seems to be on the higher energy end of the scale, like a lot of dwarfs.

My question is -- how can I tell the difference between a hamster that isn't happy in their enclosure and a hamster that's begging for attention by scaling the mesh at the top of the cage? I've had to rearrange the cage several times because she was monkey-barring all over the lid (also made of mesh) and kept falling. Now that she can't reach the mesh, she scrabbles at the plexiglass and wood sides of the cage. She doesn't do it constantly -- she loves her wheel and foraging for food and she gets about an hour in her playpen every day. A lot of the time, said scrabbling and climbing seems to be triggered by her seeing me near the cage. But when she could reach the mesh, I could often hear her monkey-barring in the middle of the night, when I was nowhere near it.

I just want my new hamster to be happy, but I don't have the experience needed to know if she is or not. I am planning on upgrading her cage within the next few months, but it would help my conscience if I knew she wasn't totally miserable while I worked on it.

10-11-2020, 04:23 PM
Grinewin Newborn Pup Join Date: Oct 2020 Posts: 37	Is My Hamster Bored or Just High Energy? Hi! I've been lurking here for quite a while but I adopted my first hamster in about 15 years last month and finally have something to post about. My hamster, Egg, is most likely a hybrid dwarf (she seems to be a pretty equal mix of the species and I've read most ww/rc dwarfs are in fact hybrids here in the US at this point). I adopted her three weeks ago from a shelter and she's living in a DIY cage that's just shy of 800 square inches. She's adapted to her new home very quickly and I didn't have to do any taming with her -- the first time I gingerly offered her a treat, she took it with no hesitation and then proceeded to climb all over my hand. I now handle her with no issues daily. She seems to be on the higher energy end of the scale, like a lot of dwarfs. My question is -- how can I tell the difference between a hamster that isn't happy in their enclosure and a hamster that's begging for attention by scaling the mesh at the top of the cage? I've had to rearrange the cage several times because she was monkey-barring all over the lid (also made of mesh) and kept falling. Now that she can't reach the mesh, she scrabbles at the plexiglass and wood sides of the cage. She doesn't do it constantly -- she loves her wheel and foraging for food and she gets about an hour in her playpen every day. A lot of the time, said scrabbling and climbing seems to be triggered by her seeing me near the cage. But when she could reach the mesh, I could often hear her monkey-barring in the middle of the night, when I was nowhere near it. I just want my new hamster to be happy, but I don't have the experience needed to know if she is or not. I am planning on upgrading her cage within the next few months, but it would help my conscience if I knew she wasn't totally miserable while I worked on it.