Hamster Escaped Today

[Jujuuls]

Today I woke up in the middle of the night hearing stuff falling over from my desk. At first I thought it was just Hamburger burrowing and moving her toys from the surface, so I turned on my light to make sure. Surely enough, Hamburger was on my desk pushing off all of my trinkets!!! I’m surprised she didn’t go any further than my desk, I’m still confused how she got out. The cage is 95 cm (38 in) long, 73 cm (29 in) wide, and 48 cm (19 in) tall. There’s a good 20 cm (8 in) distance from the highest point of her cage to the top of the bin lid, so I’m genuinely confused how she could reach the top and escape??? She hasn’t been using her wheel for more than a week so I was thinking that was the reason why. But nothing major changed about her wheel, she was using it fine a couple weeks ago until I cleaned it. Now I’m thinking of getting her a play pen to get to explore around so she doesnt feel bored in her cage. Is there anything else I could do to help my hamster? Is she bored of her cage already? She’s only been with me for one full month now.

[lovehamsters01]

It's hard to believe it until you see it firsthand, but hamsters are really escape artists! My Syrian hamster, Daisy, escaped at least 3 times until I finally managed to figure out how she did it. (she climbed up her water bottle, chewed a hole in the cover of her bin cage, and hopped out!)
some hamsters, specifically female Syrians, will always feel the need to escape no matter how exciting and large their cage is.
I found this out the hard way with Daisy and spent a ton of money to upgrade her cage until I finally realized she will always prefer to just take over my bedroom lol.
what I found helps is that I really try to let her free roam my room for at least an hour a night. After a while, I felt safe letting her roam with the door closed even without me in the room (but only for a little bit, she still lives in her cage.) so at around 9pm I'll let her out and then either stay in the room or leave depending on what I need to get done then and I'll try to let her go until 10. sometimes I put her back in and then take her out again a little later. If I'm letting her go for more than 30 min, I'll also take out her water bottle.
By the time I put her back in her cage, she's much calmer and her attempts to escape are much less frequent.
however, I'm warning you there's a good chance your room will get destroyed
the bottom of my curtains are chewed up, (I let her though cuz they're pretty old anyway), she found a bag of her food on the floor and chewed a hole right through and had emptied out quite a bit of the bag by the time I realized what was going on. she has an entire stash of food and bedding under my nightstand which I clean out about once a week, and she broke my lamp after chewing right through the wire when I wasn't paying attention.
that being said, I enjoy watching her explore my room. it's very entertaining and I don't even need to set up toys for her. I feel that it's made our bond much stronger as she's my most tame hamster and will always come running to me when I call her name, or pat the floor.
I don't know if this will work for your hamster, but if you can, it's definitely worth a shot.
good luck!

[Jujuuls]

I didn’t know that Syrians had a habit of escaping! I had a robo hamster and she never tried escaping before and she had an easier access to the top of her bin cage. So I just assumed my Syrian wouldn’t escape either. I was thinking of getting her a play pen and more toys so she could have some enrichment time. I’d let her roam around my room if there wasn’t so much nooks and crannies. I might just buy her more toys and a play pen on my next pay check
I originally wanted to have a dedicated area for her to play in but she’s only been with me for a month and I didn’t want to stress her out by moving her in new places. Thank you so much for the suggestion! I was really worried she wasn’t happy in her new home.