Ok, the hammie is trotting along nicely in his wheel these days, and can scamper around when he wishes. He is even starting to be able to pull himself along on the bars on the upper part of the cage.
Odd behavior today, though. Thought I'd put it out there and see if it's "normal" or not. The hammie seems healthy. Bright eyes, glossy coat. He is normally asleep by about 8:30 am, after having been up all night. Today at about 10:00am I was out in the living room where he was, and was doing some chores. Had the dishwasher on in the kitchen, was cooking some onions and peppers on the stove. The TV was on. No unusal activity in our house, basically.
I went over to find him climbing the bars. (He finally has enough "upper body" strength to climb bars, which is good. He had trouble pulling himself into his food bowl when he first came home!) Then he was on his upper deck, where he proceeded to start to frantically chew on the bars and climb them when I came near. He was very agitated for a good half hour. He had food and water.
After a while, so as to not get him to associate chewing on the bars and getting taken out and given treats, I took him out of his cage and gave him a check - no wheezing, clean backside, nothing out of the ordinary. He did lick my hand quite a lot, though. And got well petted in return. Then I gave him a tiny treat (a very small shaving of dried cheese) and put him back in his cage. The same behaviour started again - back and forth, up to the deck, chewing on the bars. I waited a while, then put him out on his blanket with a handfull of his seed mix, which he happily began stuffing into his pouches. Then he REALLY wanted to scamper off to explore the room, but I had to put him back in his cage as I could not supervise him extensively at that point. Behavior began again.
He has not done this behaviour at any time that we've notice since he's come to live with us, just today. Other hamsters we've had did this for attention, so I think perhaps (hopefully) that's what's going on here? He seems to have REALLY wanted out of his cage. It was just at a very odd time of day, for him. So, up at an unusual hour, hyper, chewing on the bars.... Not sure what to make of this.
He supposedly has winter-white in his ancestry, and he does seem to be starting to darken up, so perhaps it's some hormonal urge? We've had WW's in the past that were completely docile (as he is) and then all of a sudden basically "grew a pair" for a couple of days and were cranky and out-of-sorts. They went back to being sweeties just as suddenly. (Usually in the Spring.) It's the darkest time of the year here, so I can't imagine it's light-induced hormones. We are due to have a particularly evil weather front move in later today. I wonder if he might be, perhaps, sensing changes in the barometer or something?
Of course, it could just be that he's finally well and strong enough to be doing this behavior.
Still, thought I'd mention it to see if anyone else has experienced it in case there's anything I should be watching for.
Hope you all have a Great New Year!