A Little Worried..

[zebbecorn]

SO, usually my Syrian girl Maggie is quite tame, lets me hold her and set her in my lap. But, for the past few days that I've looked in on her she will 'hiss' and show her teeth to me. I can't even pick her up because she goes to bite me.

I'm worried that she may have something wrong with her. No, nothing has changed recently that could stress her because it's same ol', same ol'. :confused:

[cactus]

It's hard to say for certain without having a vet look at her. I would first be suspicious of an injury, it may be hard to see, especially if you can't pick her up. She may also be feeling unwell, they can hide it amazingly well so that predators in the wild wouldn't see they were weak and pick them off. You might want to get a vet to check her out just in case.

If it's nothing physical she might have had something negative happen to her outside the cage that wouldn't seem so negative to you. My russian dwarf Victor had a phase of being nasty to me and not wanting to be touched or held because I gently moved him away from the area of sofa he was chewing. He was fine after a while but still doesn't like it when I touch his back outside of the cage. He was just having a tantrum because he couldn't have his own way for once.

[zebbecorn]

There are no exotic vets nearby. :C

[BrainGirl]

Can you herd her into her ball or a box and see if her attitude is different outside of her cage? Maybe she's suddenly gotten territorial for some reason, maybe hormones?

[cactus]

The vet I use isn't an exotic vet but we took Thor in for an infection in the bladder and they were really good, they fixed him right up. If there's no clear problem then a vet who isn't experienced with hamsters may have difficulty in spotting a problem but it seems worth a shot. Sometimes they can surprise you. Personally I just look out for, sleeping more eating/drinking less, sitting hunched up more than usual and changes in attitude. If one or more changes dramatically it's off to the vet.

Like BrainGirl said it could also be territorial problems, two of mine are like that so I use the ball to scoop and they're lovely outside the cage.

[zebbecorn]

Well, I cleaned her cage yesterday and put her in the ball while doing so. She seemed happier outside of her cage, so I rearranged her cage and threw a few new things to play with in there. She seems happy. I think I might have been scaring her a bit taking the lid off the cage.