possibly sick

Aviator · 02-23-2012, 02:55 PM

AV is sleeping a lot more lately. he sleeps all day and all night and doesn't really get up for food or to pee. My window got left open for two nights almost a week ago, which must have been cold and I'm afraid he got sick from that. He is only about 5 months old and I've woken him up briefly to make sure he didn't have any obvious signs of illness. He looked healthy, just a bit grumpy. Does it sound like he is cold or has a cold? I have a heating pad that I could put under his cage if it might help.

Angelhamster · 02-23-2012, 03:41 PM

It may or may not be related to the window being open. Have you done a health check on him? If he's not eating or having a wee you may want to consider taking him to a vet

jess_jolie · 02-23-2012, 03:45 PM

Is he sneezing or snuffling? If a hamster has a cold they can also have running noses/eyes and can have trouble breathing, you can sometimes hear a wheezing noise.

Are his ears flat back against his head?

I'd take him to the vets just to have a check, always better to have that piece of mind.

Aviator · 02-23-2012, 05:50 PM

It didn't sound like he was having any sort of breathing problem, but he did have his ears layed back. I will do another check once I get home. He was eating and drinking a little and came out to pee once. He changed his usual place to sleep too, but that might not be related.

jess_jolie · 02-23-2012, 05:52 PM

Mine do move about where they sleep.

But to be honest I'd take him to the vet if he's not eating/drinking normally - just a quick check-up to make sure everything is fine

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-23-2012, 05:58 PM

One possibly odd question, but is there a chance he's actually fully active and just keeping it to when you're not there/awake? Our syrian is a little terror for that now and she used to be really, really sociable. I find it can be really hard to judge eating/drinking amounts over the short term (ok and over the long term with our lot and eating) so theres a chance all is ok and he's just being a bit silly for a while.

At the moment the only worrying signs I see are the changes and they're all explicable to an extent so I hope you're worrying needlessly.

Might be worth a vet check if you're worried though, we've seen one just to get my theories confirmed once (I predicted what they'd say and was 100% correct lol) and the peace of mind was worth it

(Oh and when sleepy hams do often keep their ears back, Scamp doing so just means she's half-asleep so since he was sleepy at the time chances are it was sleepiness that kept them back. I'd not worry about that unless they stay back unusually when he's fully awake.)

jess_jolie · 02-23-2012, 06:05 PM

I'm the worst for being paranoid though

But he doesn't sound like he has a cold - there'd be sneezing etc if he did.

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-23-2012, 06:12 PM

Oh so am I sometimes Jess

I just try and avoid panicking without being at least slightly sure something is wrong. Like Scamp gained the weight we wanted to help her gain, I got paranoid she had pyo because her tummy felt different. Just restrained the panic until 24 hours and two full health checks and a lot of sniffing later which confirmed it was just confirmation that she'd gained the weight she needed...
(Whereas Skip's fur loss looked a lot worse suddenly, his skin looked scaly for a minute and I er... got stressed, got lots of good advice here and later realised it was just a progression of the fur loss I'd already known about and put down to age...)

As it stands most of this might just be behaviour our hams exhibit normally so if the answers to those are that he might be doing stuff at night I'd suggest checking for that before worrying enough to enlist a vet unless other symptoms/signs appear is all.

jess_jolie · 02-23-2012, 06:22 PM

I think it would just be a good idea to monitor food/water to see that and if he isnt eating/drinking normally go for a check-up

Apollo has completely changed his routine now - he wakes up from about 6-11 then again at 4-11 strange ham :s

**kyrilliondaemon** · 02-23-2012, 06:31 PM

Yup, or even to use flour or something like people do for escapees to monitor if he's still going out a lot at night. We got worried about Scamp so I reguarly drop a small amount of her food onto the top of both her wheels. If its gone in the morning we know she used the wheel, works wonders when she's being so anti-social lol

If something is definetly wrong I would definetly go to a vet asap though, so we're definetly in agreement I think

(And you think thats strange, Bump is near diurnal lately...)