Hi everyone!
I got a female Syrian hamster back in October 2021, who we named Biscuit. She originally was a very very shy hamster, she was very timid and jumpy and did not want anything to do with us and was very unhappy biting bars constantly.
Over time we have built up trust with her and upgraded her cage (her cage now resembles more of a mansion!) and she is very friendly and outgoing. We get her out to play most nights, if not, every other night for around an hour and she loves it. She has never bitten any of us and climbs straight onto our hands, plays with toys happily and generally always wants our attention by following our hands everywhere! She seems a much happier tamer girl these days and she has plenty to do in her cage but more recently has some questionable behaviours.
Over the past few weeks we have noticed that she does not bite her bars until we walk into the room, we rarely ever hear her biting bars any other time and she stops immediately again if we turn the light off and walk away. If we spy on her without her knowing, she will be playing with toys, running on her wheel or biting at her boredom breakers. Is this to get our attention?
Furthermore, the past 2 days she has screeched / screamed at me three times! She’s only ever made this noise while biting her bars in the past. Each of these times she’s screeched in the past 2 days have been when I have gone in to check her and she has been woken up by it. I’ve been fairly quiet and spoken softly, as I always have done, she has never screeched about it before so I’m confused as to why she has started to do this now? Yesterday I proceeded to still get her out after she screeched at me twice for waking her up (it was 8pm), and she came out to play for around an hour and was happy, there was no other change in her behaviour!
Does anyone have any ideas or experience with something like this? Is she just waking up on the wrong side of the bed!?
Very grateful for anyones opinions as ever
- Flo