Hello from Sweden!

Razor · 02-01-2018, 09:02 AM

Hello!
Gaby says hello too! Gaby is my absolutely adorable Russian winter white dwarf hamster who I bought 5 days ago.☺ And boy, she is cute! ❤ Just look at her!
Well, I'm pretty new to having my own hamster, but I think it's going pretty well so far. And Gaby is one curious, confident little ball of cuteness. Within two days of bringing her home, she isn't afraid of me at all. On fact, she follows me from inside her cage as soon as I enter the room. The moment I put my hand into the cage to change her food or ruffle up the bedding, she runs after my hand, and keeps following and sniffing it. She does softly nibble at my fingers after sniffing at it for 5 minutes.
But I'm kind of confused though, of a few things. While she's super curious about my hand, and eats treats straight from my hand, she's still hasn't placed more than one of those cute furry paws on my hand, and runs of I try to stroke her back (although, sometimes she doesn't mind). But she comes running back to my hand immediately after running away though and starts sniffing it or just lays down besides it. Has anyone else experiences this?
And also, she doesn't seem to be able to figure out how to use the wheel yet. I made some DIY toys for her to work her mind on, and she spends a lot of time on those. Hamster wheel = Pee wheel. Lol.
Another interesting thing is she poops inside her house. But she also takes all the food from the bowl and places it inside the house (that's so cute ❤)

Aaaargh! I'm excited for her. Hahahah! A really long post from all that excitement!

cypher · 02-01-2018, 10:54 AM

Hi & welcome :

Gaby is adorable, what a lovely photo of her!
She does sound very confident, I wouldn't worry about her not climbing onto your hand or her being a little nervous about being stroked though, it's still very early days & she will increase in confidence with time so just go slow with her, if you put a few small seeds quite far up on your palm she will probably begin to climb onto your fingers quite soon.
What wheel have you got & have you checked it spins freely? It is unusual for them not to use the wheel pretty much straight away as long as it works ok & is a suitable size.
She will take food into her house (or any part of the cage where she feels it's safe) to eat but she will also be making a hoard, hamsters all stash food so let her have a little more than she needs to eat, not a huge amount but enough for a reasonable stash.
Poo inside the house is totally normal, they do need to eat some of it so don't worry about cleaning it too much or too often, you only really need to spot clean pee for at least a few weeks.

Pebbles82 · 02-01-2018, 12:32 PM

Hello and welcome! Cypher has said it all really - and that is such an adorable pose/photo of her!

One point though - wondered if that was fluffy bedding inside the house? It's dangerous if it is. Best to chuck it and just put out a big pile of torn up strips of plain white toilet paper for her to build a new nest with. Just put it somewhere in the cage and she will forage for it, pouch it and take it to her house to build a nest with.

Our Robo didn't use his wheel at first - I put a treat in it each day and he finally found it and got the hang of it and then was very funny running in it!

CMB · 02-01-2018, 12:47 PM

Welcome. The photo is lovely. Gaby will likely get more confident in time.

Razor · 02-05-2018, 01:44 AM

Hello!
So here's an update on Gaby. She still doesn't use the wheel, I've also checked that it works smoothly. But she does enjoy running around in her hamster ball.

And she's already climbing up my hands and running all the way up to my shoulders. She doesn't seem to care whether I have a treat placed on my hand or not. She just needs to run up my hand as soon as I place it in. �� What's even more adorable is that she prefers eating the treats straight off my hand rather than picking it from my hands. If I then take my hand away, and place the treat down, she stops eating and stashes it away for later. Hahaha! I love this clever little hamster. ❤

Razor · 02-05-2018, 01:47 AM

Really? Hmmm.. The store insisted that the wool is completely digestable and safe. But I guess they do tend to spread outdated information. Thanks for the heads up! I will switch to that right away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Serendipity7000

Hello and welcome! Cypher has said it all really - and that is such an adorable pose/photo of her!

One point though - wondered if that was fluffy bedding inside the house? It's dangerous if it is. Best to chuck it and just put out a big pile of torn up strips of plain white toilet paper for her to build a new nest with. Just put it somewhere in the cage and she will forage for it, pouch it and take it to her house to build a nest with.

Our Robo didn't use his wheel at first - I put a treat in it each day and he finally found it and got the hang of it and then was very funny running in it!

Penguin · 02-05-2018, 02:40 AM

Look at what a cutie she is! That face is asking to get cuddled!

Pet stores often don't know a lot about the pets they are selling. I think someone on here once told me something along these lines 'you wouldn't go to a grocery store and ask for advice on weight loss, so why ask a petstore about how to care for the pets they sell?'

Petstores tend to give wrong information about bedding, wheel size, cagesize, fluffy/cotton bedding, bathing sand and the list goes on. I don't think it's because they don't care, but it's usually a case of them not knowing better.

I hope we will get to see more of you two!

Razor · 02-05-2018, 04:20 AM

This is kind of interesting. Gaby decided to abandon her house. She reorganized the entire cage in such a way that she piled all the wood shavings to a corner, making it a 15ish centimeter tall pile. She then removed all the bedding from inside her house and moved it into this pile where she built a burrow for herself. She now sleeps in this Gaby-made burrow house instead of her little plastic house. Is this something to be concerned about or is it perfectly natural?

cypher · 02-05-2018, 05:51 AM

That's totally natural, a lot of plastic houses are too small & tend to get condensation build up so a burrow is actually preferable, always nice to see natural behaviour like that too!
Balls can be dangerous for dwarf hamsters as they can be very easily injured, it would be safer (& more fun!) for her if you could buy or make a playpen for her & fill it with things to explore & a wheel to run in.