My first hamster

[harmless]

I did it! My first Hamster. No name yet.

I'm trying to attach a photo--another first.

[Petite]

Congratulations! - Have fun with your new furry friend.

[Charlie Dunn]

Aww such a beauty - congratulations x

[Ria P]

What a cute little hamster! Congratulations!

[harmless]

Aw, thanks!
I'm glad I got a photo just when I let him out of the box, because I haven't seen him since. He dived under the white fluff where it's piled high. But it was a big day for him, being handled by several people.
I was lucky enough to find a pet store where they would talk to you about the individual animals they had and their temperaments. They said he/she was the calmest and the one most likely to come to the front of the tank and observe people.

[harmless]

Trying to attach photo of the whole tank

[NibbleeTheHamster]

Oh my a robo. So cute! Enjoy your long long life journey together! <3

[Pebbles82]

Adorable! Robos do that - they dig tunnels and burrows. But pop up now and then. It can take a couple of weeks for them to settle in and gain confidence. One thing you might want to do is add a few more hidey places. It encourages them to be out more if they have lots of enrichment at floor level and places to dive into. But I'd wait a week before adding anything and not move anything else around or it;ll stress him/her out. They spent the first two weeks acclimatising and scent marking everywhere.

Things like a sqaure tissue box or even a cardboard egg box can do as extra little hideouts and a child's shoe box can make a good subterranean house with a lift off roof (you just cut the base out and a cut a hole for a door and the lid makes a lift off roof.). I was thinking of the area of white paper. They like something to sit under as well.

[harmless]

He's a Robo? His enclosure at the pet store was labeled Winter White (which I knew from reading he probably wouldn't be entirely). Whatever he is, he's cute, and he's staying. I'm saying "he" because it's short; I still don't know.

Anyway, thank you for the comments. Right now I'm only seeing him in the early morning. I slip into the room where his tank is and he'll be out in the food/toy area and he'll freeze and look at me. If I put my hand in the tank (with a sunflower seed in it; I pick them out of his food mix) he dashes off to his burrow, although once I dropped the seed near him and he cracked and ate it before he ran off. Well, it gives me something to look forward to--the day when he actually takes the sunflower seed from my hand.

I'll give him more hiding places soon, as suggested--thanks again.

One bright spot is that the Kaytee white bedding seems to be holding his tunnels okay. The openings have been in the same place for about 2 days, 2 of them, rather large. Also, at the beginning, he would only take a couple of kinds of seeds from the mix I set out, but last night he cleaned out the whole thing. A lot of it's probably stashed somewhere, right? But I consider it as a sign he thinks of this as home now. He's stocking the pantry.

[harmless]

A happy update: Today, the 19th, Bean (short for bean blossom) took a sunflower seed I was holding out with my fingertips.

How I've been handling him is that I've been just standing by the aquarium when I saw that he was out, and after about a minute dropping a sunflower seed from high up, and then standing there another minute and slowly leaving. He's seemed less and less afraid, so this morning after 2 seeds I lowered one into the tank in my fingertips and he snatched it! He didn't go immediately to his burrow, but he did soon after.

Still don't know if he's a robo, but he has no stripe in the middle of his back. I looked at some robos in a pet store and he seems larger than that, but then, the pet store lady said he was the larger of the two in the enclosure when I bought him. A large robo? Even if so, after this morning, this being only day 9, I'm thinking he's going to turn out to be a pretty calm pet eventually.

The idea that he might be a robo and need extra patience was helpful and well worth the price of being on this forum. :) {there wasn't a price}

[Pebbles82]

He looks like a robo to me :-) Mind boggling to think what his cage mate might have been if they were labelled wrongly. If he was the bigger of the two, he'd probably been territorial over the food - that's the problem with pairs, one can end up being territorial and the other one not get any food.

They are mostly all fluff though. When you get chance to weigh him that should show he's a robo as they are much lighter than other species of dwarf - although you can get overweight robos!

He looks perfectly normal to me - and they always look a bit chunky as so much fur.

Great progress! Our robo would never take food from my hand. He'd take it if pushed through the bars - sometimes.

[Ria P]

Our Monty is a large Robo. In fact, he's the biggest i've ever seen and i've fostered and rehomed a number of Robos. Like humans, hamsters come in different sizes.

Does yours have a sandbath? Robos love a sand area with a little hide in it.

Once you're able to handle your Robo, turn him over and have a look at his private parts. They are quite obvious in a large, male Robo.

Thing about Robos is that they don't move when you have a hold of them so doing a health check, sexing them or trimming nails is easier than with other dwarf hamsters.
I hold them with their back against my palm and my thumb across their chest to check their gender.

Always handle a Robo over something soft and enclosed in case he jumps off.

I like all species of hamsters but wouldn't want to be without a Robo. They have these incredibly cute faces.....

[flowerfairy]

Aw I love roborovskis. Mine likes to play invisible hamsters so I often dont see him for days at a time!

[harmless]

I get out of bed at first light, about 30 minutes before official sunrise, and that's when I get to interact with Bean. By sunrise, he's back in the burrow.

Not finding what I wanted in the stores, I ordered a sand bath and some sand from Amazon several days ago. It's still on the way, from the other side of the US.

Maybe they mislabeled Bean and his companion as Winter Whites because of his size and his light coloring. From what I've seen on the internet, the white eyebrows and the lack of a stripe down his back pretty much guarantee he's a robo. Fine with me. I thought a robo would be totally unresponsive to humans but Bean--well, he's responsive to sunflower seeds anyway.

This morning, he took a seed from a half inch/a centimeter or so into the palm of my hand. He also took a test bite of my finger. Powerful little jaws, he has. Apparently my jump wasn't big enough to scare him.