Hi. Substrate is fine. Diet as Engels says - a good muesli mix better than pellets. Oxbow essentials not good for hamsters generally at all - too much roughage. Amity knows about good mixes in the US.
Yes avoid moving things - they generally hate that and it stresses them. It’s a bit like you coming home from work to find someone has rearranged your bedroom and moved all the furniture. Feels like an invasion and very unsettling. As a prey species hamsters see it that someone has invaded their territory and don’t feel secure. But mostly they feel a bit lost. They don’t see well at all and scent mark eveythinh in their cage and leave scent trails to find their way around.
In addition to that they need a settling in period of about two weeks with no cleaning or disturbing things. It’s ok you can just start the two weeks again. Don’t even spot clean during that two weeks. If it becomes particularly smelly after a week then just spot clean the pee area- they often choose a corner of the cage - take a handful out and put a handful of clean substrate in and mix it in a bit so it still
Smells like the pee corner. If it’s not obvious where she is peeing then just leave it. It’ll be fine for two weeks. Baby hamsters sometimes pee in their nest but grow out of that. Syrians will use a litter tray so after the two weeks, you could pop a corner litter tray in her pee area and she’ll probably start using it straight away (put a bit of pee’d on substrate on top of the sand the first time so she finds it ok). Chinchilla bathing sand can be used in the litter tray. Then life gets easier - you just empty the litter tray a couple of times a week and the rest of the cage stays clean and dry usually. So cleanouts not needed that often. With 4 to 6” of substrate and a litter tray you can easily go two to three months without a substrate change.
Clean outs stress them so partial cleans are better. Ie do things as and when rather than cleaning everything at the same time which removes all their familiar scent. So wheel one week, substrate another week etc.
They are very precious about their nest and hoard and those can be left alone. Unless pee’d on. If you have to remove it due to pee then try and leave a bit of the old nest behind and just add a pile of new nesting material in the cage somewhere (not in the house - they like to forage for it). Torn up strips of plain white toilet paper are best. Likewise if you need to remove the hoard because it’s pee’d on try and leave a little bit of dry hoard behind and add new food to replace some of what has been removed - in the same place. They can get quite frantic if their hoard is “stolen”! Dry food hoard is fine to be left for quite a long time - until you’re ready to do a substrate change - then the hoard can be pruned a bit of it is very large.
What makes them happy is being able to have normal behaviours such as foraging , nest building and hoarding. Most of the food they take from the food bowl is pouched and hoarded rather than eaten as such. And they then eat ftom their hoard/larder (snack in bed
).
They are actually very clean little things - it’s only their pee that smells.
If the hoard is removed it can lead to abnormal
behaviours (and anxiety) - they start peeing on the hoard to deter thieves. That then becomes a catch 22 as you have to remove it because it’s pee’d on - but the cycle can be broken quite quickly and it’s why it’s important to replace with new food.
She may be a bit nervy at first and hide away but should be much more confident in a couple of weeks. Bathtub taming can be good to start after the first couple of weeks. (Dry bath tub).
Meanwhile keep talking to her through the cage so she gets familiar with your voice and scent. They tend not to like a hand in the cage initially so feeding a treat through the bars is a good start (although leaving it outside her house is fine too). That’s not so easy if it’s a tank so offering treats may need to be done during out of cage time/taming sessions.
Sorry to hear about the gerbil experience. I think we’ve all
Made pet mistakes along the way.