[Pebbles82]

Hello and welcome. It's a nightmare when you have a bar chewer. It can be something that isn't right for them in the cage. They bar chew for different reasons. Sometimes it's stress, sometimes it's to try and let you know something - get your attention (eg if the wheel is stuck or they can't reach the water bottle). Some are just highly active and want more space and females can be more like that. Another thing that can cause it is stress from being cleaned out too much - they literally want to escape and can't relax in the cage if all their familiar scent has been removed regularly.

Our current Syrian is highly active and he wants to be out a lot - virtually jumps out of the cage when I open the door. If I don't let him out by a certain time of night he starts bar chewing. That's when it's a bad attention seeking behaviour!

But you can start with cage set up and see if that improves anything. Hamsters vary as to what they like but common things are:

Overhead cover

Plenty of floorspace for digging

Somewhere dark to retreat to - like a large house that's dark inside

And everything easily accessible - ie if the food bowl is high up on a shelf, that it's easy to get to without struggling to get up there. Or that a ladder feels stable and not too wobbly.

I can't see everything in your cage but I personally would suggest a few tweaks,

The shelf on the left is very low down and with the two long ladders between the shelves that maybe is partly obstructing use of the substrate area.

There's also a lot of open space above (they can feel too exposed).

I can't see if you've got a house or where it is or what kind it is.

If it was me I would keep one of the shelves and replace the other one with a large house or labyrinth house - they are dark inside. It will also provide another platform as they have a flat roof.

As well as that I'd fill the base with substrate and pile it up in the middle a bit. And have something like a large rat sputnik hanging from the roof - either next to the shelf or next to the house roof. This is somewhere else to go - another hidey place - and it's also something else to sit under - overhead cover.

I usually also tie a rat tube to the roof - leading out of the sputnik and onto another small shelf or house roof at the other end. Or even into a second sputnik. This helps stop them jumping out from a height at one side, but it also creates more places to go - a roof run. They then have two ways of getting across the cage - either via the roof run to the sputnik and out onto the shelf, or across the substrate and up a ladder or ramp onto the shelf.

This kind of set up has worked for me and I'll add a photo later of something I did like that in a 100cm cage, as an example.

The change should give her pause for thought and might distract her out of it and if she likes it she may settle - but will probably always need regular out of cage time each night.

They like lots of hidey places - coconut huts, other little houses etc.

Also ramps can be an issue. I personally don't like the long bendy bridges (mainly because they've broken on me before but also because some hamsters like something more stable to walk on).

I've used a large cork log before pushed part way under a shelf and it then doubles up as a ramp up to the shelf and also a tunnel to run through.


However, this means buying the odd extra thing maybe, and if it doesn't work, and you have to change to a glass tank or something, you've spent money on other things. Most of those other things would still be fine in a new cage however. Even the Sputniks can be used on the floor, upside down.

So first thing I'd try is changing the set up. The kind of set up I've suggested helps them with normal behaviours. If they have a large house, they can nest, hoard and toilet all in the same large area which is in the dark. A house also needs to be open underneath and sat on top of the substrate - this keeps it ventilated well but also allows them to bury hoards under their nest, which is a normal behaviour that keeps them happy.

How long have you had her and how often do you clean her out? It's best not to do big clean outs regularly. Just get a litter tray and they use that to pee in then the rest of the cage stays clean and dry and you cna just "spot clean" occasionally. I got about 3 to 4 months doing that - before doing a substrate change - and even then I only replace about half the substrate and keep the clean half back - so it still smells familiar - eg spread the old clean half on top of the new. And don't clean anything else at the same time.

So partial cleans are better - eg wheel one week, another item as and when and substrate a different week again.

Meanwhile, as Ria says - weave cardboard strips through the bars - she'll chew on the cardboard instead.

Some females also like to have something cardboard to rip up regularly! So another cage floor item could be an old egg box (cardboard) she can tear to shreds!

Off to find the photo.