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Old 06-24-2021, 07:10 PM  
Hammy_Newbie
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Join Date: Mar 2020
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Default Hamster sleeping at night

We adopted a Syrian hamster, Cookie, from an animal rescue centre 2 weeks ago and I am a bit worried about some of her behaviours.

She is in a hamster heaven with trixie 11 inch wheel, ferplast guinea pig house, lots of chews, hides and hanging boredom breakers. However, she has been biting the bars a bit (I was warned she was a chewer) and I’ve noticed a few times when I’ve checked on her in the middle of the night that she has been sleeping. She is always asleep during the day unless she is roused so we can clean her cage or something but usually wakes up at around 7pm and is active from then in - going in her wheel, exploring the cage, eating or occasionally chewing the bars. When I go to bed around 11pm she is always awake and I’ll usually let her out for a run around at this point, but a few times if I’ve woken in the early hours and checked on her, she is fast asleep. Is this normal? I’m worried she might be a bit bored/ depressed.

She won’t sleep in the ferplast house and instead has built a nest in the open, underneath the lower of the two platforms. Her coconut, she has completely filled with substrate so that she can no longer go in it and she did the same to her toilet, which had sand in it.

She is doing a lot of rubbing against things, especially when I let her out of the cage, which I’m guessing is her marking her territory but I’m not familiar with that as our previous hamster never did it. She’s still a little wary of us but if I’m in the room she’ll often wait by the door and once I open the door, she’ll climb out.

I have a hammock and more toys on order but is there anything else I could be doing to keep her busy and entertained? I might try and add a sand bath to see if she likes that and I’ve started scattering half her food so she can forage.

She came to the animal rescue centre in a small cage with little enrichment and had apparently been staying with a friend of the original owner for a couple of weeks before being given away. She was then with a fosterer for 2 weeks in a big, well set-up cage so we are her fourth ‘owners’ in the space of a couple of months. I imagine she’s probably feeling unsettled and half expecting to be moved again soon.

Does anyone have any ideas about how to make her more settled or is it just a case of giving it time?
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