Bao

[tea rose]

I posted Bao's (and my) hello in the introductions forum but have more pictures to share. I'm fascinated by him - I've never had a Chinese hamster before. He's from the PAH adoption section, said to be under 6 months old and was in there with two other male Chinese who had to be rehomed from someone living locally who had to move. I stroked him lots while a member of staff held him and he seemed really tame, but since I've had him he's moved pretty fast so I'm a little hesitant at actually trying to pick him up and have left him to settle in thus far. He's living in a Hamster Heaven which he seems to like - except today he's moved his nest into the horizontal tubes at the top and I'm worried that he's sleeping in pee Should I block them off?

Anyway... here's Bao...


Posing in his tubes








Stop taking my photo already!


He wasn't meant to eat all of this - he's only small - but when I came back it was all gone (though he seems none the worse for wear)








Bao in his Silent Spinner / potty


Exploring in the bath

[Hanlou]

Aw he's lovely. Beautiful markings and colouring!

I don't use the tubes on the HH anymore - haven't done for a while now - so Ping doesn't have them. As you'll have seen from the photo I already showed you; he does have tubes within the cage to play in such as the Playground kit he's got but I needed to put a cage on top of the HH which the tubes wouldn't allow me to do. You can buy These which have a stopper attached to them that would block the hole in the HH if you chose to do that or This House also comes with three stoppers that you can also use on the HH holes!

Plus, I had to get rid of the Penthouse (green think on top) anyway as my Syrian hamster who initially had that cage nibbled at it to try and escape so I don't think it's 'safe' anymore!

I haven't tried to handle Ping yet either as he's only very young still and is very shy so we don't see much of him yet. He is *very* fast though!

So we'll have to try and progress with taming and update each other. :P

[tea rose]

Thanks Hanlou! I can't stop taking photos of him, the poor little sausage.

Thank you so much for the links - those stoppers will be really useful. But now I'm in serious danger of going on another hamster shopping spree (to make the postage more economical of course)...

Ping sounds adorable - have you got any photos of him yet? I'd love to see him

Bao & I are still getting to know each other. He's shy too, & I'm used to rats coming & sticking their noses in whatever I'm doing, so it's a learning experience for me, but I'm taking it really slowly. I figured out that if I leave the lights off he wakes up at a reasonable time so I can actually see him, but if I switch them on he won't get up until midnight. Awkward little so and so... he's in the room I spend most of my time in so it's not ideal! He'll accept treats from my hand and I can lift him out in a box and stroke him but that's as far as we've got. He's nipped my hand a few times but not hard - I think he just wants to see what I taste like. He nips and then runs away. And I can't believe how fast Chinese hamsters are. I'm so glad he's in the Hamster Heaven as he gets across it in about a second... anything smaller would have seemed too small to me.

How's Ping coming along?

[pophammy]

Aww, he is really cute!

[tea rose]

Thanks pophammy! Now if I could just persuade him that waking up before 1am is a good idea....

[souffle]

Aww he is adorable. Lovely markings. I would start getting him used to be wakened up now so you can take him out to play at a reasonable hour! We russle the bedding a jiggle the food dish and call the hammies and they normally come trundling out!

[haziebabie]

He is very sweet, I have never come across Chinese hammie's before but he looks lovely!

As for getting up (before dropping her surprise litter- lol) we had Mavis (Syrian) in a lovely routine of a morning play and run about 8am for twenty minutes and another at 4pm, and sometimes later if she was up so I didn't have to share her with the kids- LOL. She was normally up in the mornings anyway but had to wake her in the afternoons. She was fine with it though as long as she had time for a stretch and a wee. Also we have Rotastak so we just used to pop the tube out and wait for her to be ready and climb out herself then scoop her up. We just used to tap on the cage and call her name to wake her.

I'm kind of missing her cuddles actually but am spending lots of time watching!!!

[stripeybea]

Bao is gorgeous tea rose i hope that he gets used to you taming him soon and that he learns to come out before midnight.