Hamster not running in her wheel

[phdutton]

Hi there,
New to these forums, but by no means new to owning hamsters. Over our teenage years my brother and I owned, and bred many hamsters, to many to count to be honest. So their behaviour, and how they act I know pretty well, thought I'd seen all the odd things.....

Recently we (now many years later, fiancée and I) decided to get a hamster (Syrian, as always.). All was normal, she seemed to take to running on top of her wheel rather than in it, but we've had one who happily did that his whole life before, so thought nothing of it.

Suddenly she stopped, she had two wheels in her cage, that original one, and a new slightly bigger one (I forgot what size they grow to! haha). She hops in and out of them, but never runs in or on them. I did try putting some food in the middle of it for a while, to draw her attention to it. It just became somewhere she checked for food, nothing else.
In ever other way she seems perfectly normal. She is quite happy for hours in her ball running around the flat. Scurries around the cage as normal, and is very tame and exploitative to hold.

A lot of the things in her cage are wooden, so I thought maybe a wooden wheel might work. So got one, very big, perfect size for her to run in. She seems to like nibbling it, sitting in it, but not running in it.

Sorry for the essay on my first post. I was just wondering if anyone had seen this before and had any advice?

Thanks,
Pete.

[kyrilliondaemon]

How big are the wheels? The most common reason is that they've outgrown their wheel, our syrians both need 11"+ wheels to run comfortably and Scamp bluntly refuses to use anything smaller.

[phdutton]

Hi, thanks for the reply. The two in there now are 15 cm, which looks normal to me, easily big enough. And the wooden one is 22cm, huge!

[Kaztrekie]

15 cm i s way to small no matter how big it looks as is the 22 cm one
They need 12 inches so they don't hurt there spine .
Flying saucers are great but you will find other suitable wheels on here.

[kyrilliondaemon]

Er... 15cm wheels are normal yes, but normal doesn't mean big enough. A syrian needs a wheel it can run in without its back bending and they can't do that in 15cm diameter wheels.

22cm is only about 8" diameter too, so thats actually smaller than my own syrians will be comfortable using. I know it seems huge but everyone here has found their hams are happier with at least 8" wheels and most of us have found 11" (28cm) to be what our syrians need. 15cm wheels are just too small for syrians to be comfortable. Pet shops want profit, not good animal welfare and its pet shops that think 15cm wheels are fine for syrians.

[Digga]

Yep...have both - a 29cm Karlie and a 12" silent spinner and both get used. I thought they would be too big but now I can't believe I used a smaller size.

[Petite1]

The bigger the wheel the better, they need rat size things really to be comfortable, they will not use a wheel that is too small for them, hope this helps x

[phdutton]

So the bigger the better. Issue there is, I'm not going to get anything much bigger in the cage, and she isn't a particularly big hamster either.

[Kaztrekie]

What size cage is it? Most suitable cages will fit a larger wheel in no problems ,even a small Syrian will need a decent sized wheel.the zz2 and mamble 100 fit a 12" flying saucer with lots of room to spare.

[phdutton]

Its not a small cage. I can't imagine that the new wooden wheel is to small.

This one.....
TREEHOUSE REAL WOOD HAMSTER WHEEL | eBay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180946826904?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649)

[Eriklover555]

That's only a little less than eight inches. We can't reiterate enough that anything less than 11 inches is probably too small. I know it can be frustrating, but small wheels can lead to a lot of discomfort, and damage that will show itself as they age.

[Kaztrekie]

That's not quite 8 inches so yes it's way to small for a Syrian as you mentioned you forgot how big they get.

[phdutton]

I'll look in to it.
Thanks :-)

[Kaztrekie]

Glad to help that's what we are all here for.

[HollyHamster]

Just make sure your cage has a floor space that is no smaller than 75cm by 40cm as its the recommended humane size by the RSPCA.

[TraceyH]

They sure do grow out of the smaller wheels quick.

This is a pic of one of my new hamsters I got a couple of weeks ago. He was 8 weeks and in a 8 inch wheel and already it's becoming too small for him and he's only teeny.

[Kissa]

Pictorial example of why big wheels are best ;) http://www.hamstercentral.com/community/housing/27759-importance-wheel-sizes.html

[jesselle]

You got all the advice you need, but to put it into perspective, one of my roborovskis has a 20cm wooden wheel because he outgrew his 15cm one :)

[phdutton]

Update!
Completely out of the blue, she started running in the wooden wheel. Now she's in it all the time, just like normal.
Strange.

[mongo]

My Syrian has two 'wheels' - one mesh 28cm? wheel (it's huge!) and a flying saucer (chinchilla size). I give a few different options just so they can have different sensations on their feet, and probably use different muscles too.