We have noticed that the only time he's chewing at the bars (as far as we can tell) is when we've just put him back in his cage and he wants back "out" or when we come into the room and have not noticed him. I wish it wasn't so cute, but we're not going to reinforce the behaviour if possible.
Another question for you guys. Scent glands. We were told his scent gland was blocked before we got him, but that the rescuer had managed to get it unblocked and all the gunk off of it. Apparently it was quite a mess. We are watching for any recurrence of that and have noticed he has got a black dot where his scent gland pore is. I don't know if it's the equivalent of a human blocked pore cap, or if it's normally supposed to be black. There is no swelling around it at all, as far as either of us can tell. It doesn't seem to be bothering him at all.
I wonder if it would hurt if we put something like a dab of olive oil or some light oil on it and kind of rubbed it with a cotton ball, to see if it loosens and comes out? I would assume the hammie would lick himself furiously, which could mean a bit of messy poops when the oil hit his gut, but would it hurt him?
Right now I'm inclined to do nothing at all, but watch it to see if it does become puffy or otherwise bothers him. We had a dwarf hammie that got a seriously impacted scent gland once before, and had surgery to remove it (that was pricey!), so I'd rather avoid having to put the ham through that if at all possible.
Or, seriously, is it normal? If he had not had a history of having had the blocked pore before, I wouldn't worry about it, really. On our prior who had the blockage, he was one of the "no touchy" hamsters, so we didn't notice it right away. By the time we did, the vet said surgery was the best answer. So I've never actually spent much time looking at healthy hamster glands.
