Can a bar chewer ever go back to barred cages? - Page 7

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-01-2012, 01:20 PM

Yeah... I'll keep my fingers crossed for the two of you!

Mona's Humans · 02-02-2012, 01:46 AM

sometimes ham's will nibble to test things, especially if they are new and unscented, its their way of feeling something as we would with our hands, so don't give up on her yet lol - also make sure you don't have her food container in sight or smell, as if we leave peppers food container open (under the cage) by mistake he will try to frantically dig through the cage

(he did have food in the cage at the time) - crazy hamster!

Boo · 02-02-2012, 04:10 AM

She nibbled during the day a couple of times and I ignored it, but she has since focused on one specific area which, funnily enough, is the same area as she chewed her old cage (front left corner). She's doing it quite furiously too, slipping off the platform because she's doing it so hard. I'll see how she is today.

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-03-2012, 06:23 AM

Oh yeah... Scamp goes mental if we leave stuff by the base of her cage. Even the empty packet of Monkey Nuts when it had just missed the bin had her going mad for it lol

Er... That sounds less than perfect Boo. Best of luck to you in getting her to stop.
(Sorry for calling you Boo but my mind has gone blank with regards to your name so I figured I'd use your username even if it is that of the hamster lol)

Boo · 02-03-2012, 08:46 AM

Haha my name is Nollaig, or Noll for short

Boo was MUCH better yesterday, running in her wheel, chewing her hanging grassy thing, and generally climbing around her platforms. Chewing her water bottle spout a bit too but I don't mind that at all, it's not noisy and she doesn't spend hours doing it. I didn't see her chewing the bars at all. Thought she was making for them a couple of times, but she turned tail and ran.

She was quite subdued, I think the realisation she's stuck in the new cage is sinking in haha. She was also tearing around though, I've never seen her run as fast simply because she didn't have the horizontal floorspace to do so! She's happily bounding all over the place. So I'm actually hoping it was just testing the bars.

I'm going to make her a little hammock if I can find a 'how-to' on it, and next week I'm going to a massive pet store in one of the neighbouring towns, so I'm planning to buy a load of different toys so I can keep mixing things up in the cage for her.

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-03-2012, 09:07 AM

I knew it began with an N! Just couldn't do much without remembering the rest of the letters lol

And awesome, I'm glad she behaved yesterday. Am glad she seems to be enjoying the new space, and good luck making the hammock! We've got a hammock in Scamp's hamster heaven, fortunately she behaves and doesn't chew it at all. Just likes clambering on it. We also like to change her toys around once in a while, although she does always keep some in the places they started.

We've got loads of toys between all the hams, so switching toys is fairly easy. We just go to the toys in the hamster runs, take what we want and replace with the stuff from the cage lol. Do have a box for spare toys but we rarely keep anything in it unless the runs are away for once.

Boo · 02-03-2012, 09:13 AM

She's not up yet today, though I went in to take out the remainder of the grass thing which she has decimated and used for her nest, and she woke up and started sniffing at me through the penthouse door. Really paranoid about her chewing THAT and it popping open - though I've pulled it a good few times (when she wasn't in it, of course!) and it took a fair ole yank to get it open from the only part she can reach (that isn't covered by green plastic on the inside). So fingers crossed she won't. My brother crashed a metal tray in the oven last night when I was asleep and I shot out into the living room thinking the hamster was escaping LOL!

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-03-2012, 09:42 AM

Ours are mostly asleep at the moment too. One of the russians is awake but I can't see who because she's on a wheel at this end of the cage.

Good idea keeping a close eye on the penthouse, I hope she'll behave though.
And er... That must've been fun lol. We've found hamsters aren't nice enough to escape noisily though

Scamp has woken me after having escaped and explored my room once, but otherwise they've been silent as far as I know.

**oscar** · 02-12-2012, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyrilliondaemon

Hi
Our syrian bar chews, she definetly has enough space, definetly has plenty of toys, definetly has plenty of gnawing things, and still chews.
We know it started out as "oi! theres a problem" but now its usually just for the sake of it.

Today we're going to switch her cage over a lot, take most of it off her and make sure the only bars are well out of her reach. What I want to know, is can she go back to her normal cage setup after a few weeks or will she need to stay away from bars permanently to avoid her going back to the habit?

We'd really prefer her to be able to go back to this cage setup eventually, but if she can't we'll need to start planning how best to rearrange cages and make sure she still has plenty of space, and if we've got to do that its best to know now rather than when Scamp returns to her normal cage setup and starts the chewing again.

i know the feeling.
mafia, my alpha female bar chews every time i put her in a cage. she was born behind the bookcase and dosent like enclosures. i have to put her in a cage for a few hours each evening so oscar can play out. but she turns her nose up at that.
have you tried letting her roam around the living room to see how she behaves. Mafia now lives in the cupboard. their is a hole cut out for her and she comes and goes as she pleases. she is perfectly trustable to return their each morning after her nightly roamings. the only time she did a moonlight flit was when the others gatecrashed her home
she was found in their house in their cage!!.
but she did take all her stuff with her lol
they are very intelligent, very highly amusing creatures. i dont suppose you want to go to these extremities, letting him roam round forever, but why not see where he nests naturally and place his cage their.

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-12-2012, 10:46 AM

Er... Oscar, if you look at that then you'll see this was posted in December. We've since resolved the issue (as posted in the thread) and had a bit of a scare with the silly girl going back to it, but that turned out to be a false alarm fortunately.

Leaving a hamster live free range is plain dangerous as far as I'm concerned so no its not something we intend to try with Scamp. We also have seven other hamsters and try to ensure all are treated well, which means someone free ranging is unfair to the others for multiple reasons.
If Scamp does ever chew too much we have a spare robo-safe cage and will simply rearrange a bit so that either Skip or Whizz and Muffin get the Alexander as a new home while Scamp takes the ZZ2 that will be left empty as a result. If she then proceeds to chew plastic we'll be forced to buy a large aquarium or detolf.

There are solutions that don't involve leaving a hamster free range, and as has also been discussed - lack of space isn't the problem so it wouldn't make a difference...