Female reaching maturity and tube nesting

[lawstudent93]

I have had my hamster for around 5 months now and got her when she was around 6 weeks old. I've read that round 6 months hamsters reach maturity and over the last few days she:
-has started displaying signs of being in heat (such as a raised tail when stroked)
-is drinking more
-is slightly smellier at certain times
but i've been told by my vet all these things are normal.

Her strange behaviour started over the last two nights. She has started filling her connecting tube between her two cage areas with bedding. Her main cage contains her nest food store and water and her second cage contains her wheel and a chamber which she uses to pee in. She has toys in both chambers.
-She doesn't sleep in the tube
-She doesn't store anything in the tube
-The access to her second chamber is completely blocked.

She has also been chewing her fruit tree sticks into smaller pieces and adding them to the bedding, almost as if to create a nest. She has never displayed any behaviour like this before and has always nested in her coconut which she continues to sleep in.

Is there any reason for this behaviour?
She still seems happy in herself and is happy to be picked up and handled (she has never bitten or nipped).

Any help would be greatly appreciated as she has a very unique temperament and a strong character and has become very dear to me and my partner and we're both worried about her.

[Gazmo]

sometimes hamsters do that when they reach maturity, one of mine stays in her tube, another takes her favorite toy into her nest, and another adds anything she can find to her nest

[HaylBart]

My hamster Pixel did this for about 3 weeks. She would block the tube connecting her 2 cages with sawdust and dig it out each time she wanted to pass through it. We put it down to her maturing and displaying natural behaviour.
She stopped doing it as quickly as she started doing so (probably that this method used up to much energy and she could better expend it in her ball ). She also moved her nest from her cottage in one cage to a sputnick in the other cage. After 3 weeks she moved her bedding back to the cottage (which is in a darker part of the cage setup) and stopped blocking the tube.
We didn't interveine at all as she was happy and we were worried if we started messing around with her cage arrangement she would become unsettled.
Hope this helps

[Nush]

Your hamster would have been on heat from a younger age. I think like humans these things can vary but generally they can be on heat as early as 4 weeks old but by 8 weeks you can assume that she's on heat. So I don't think the changes you've noticed are due to her being on heat.

She would be on heat every 4 days so you could watch her and time it. They do lift their bums and are generally a bit smellier but mine never drank a lot more. I'd watch the drinking and probably measure it to see if it's increasing or not. If it is, it can be an indication of a health issue.

Blocking the tubes is a way of stopping predators coming near to her nest. I'm guessing that's what she's doing. Sometimes there are no trigger for such things. But sometimes it could be because the cage was cleaned recently or you added a new toy that didn't smell of her to her cage.

[lawstudent93]

Thank you! I'll leave her for the next few days and see what happens!

I was a bit concerned about her water intake, but I asked my vet and she said it was normal as they get bigger. I've an appointment booked for her next week just to be safe though