#hamster behavior

[stargazir]

Suicidal, big eyes, anxious 24/7, traumatized. Robert Reynolds is never defeating the hamster allegations

[fbwzoo]

This is aimed at the hamster anon! Hamsters are not often friendly creatures at first which may surprise many as they're aimed at first time pet owners, they are very skittish and prone to bite until they are comfortable which can take a while as in my case, my hamster took about six months in total to allow me to pick her up. The best thing you can do is start feeding (treats, fruit, nice things) through the bars first as unlike rats and mice hamsters won't generally immediately associate 1/2

fingers with food. When the hamster is comfortable with you feeding them through the bars and don’t run away, you can move your hand into the cage and offer treats from your fingers and then when they are comfortable with this, try to gently pet them while they eat their treat. After doing this for a while, tempt the hamster onto your hand but don’t lift or pet, and then when they are comfortable you can begin lifting them up very slowly or petting but do all of this very slowly asthey take a long time to build a bond with. Another good idea is to bring the hamster into the empty bathtub and get in the bathtub with the hamster and just sit there. The hamster will then explore you and your scent will become familiar and this is good. The most important thing, however, is not to rush any of these steps or anything you do to bond as they are slow to trust and if you make them do anything they don’t want to they will not see your interaction as positive. Hope this helps!

Here’s some more advice, hamster anon! :) Thank you, helpful anon!

[hamsternostalgia]

Probably the most common 'negative' (but healthy!) social interaction in a newly establishing colony (whether it be pairing to breed, putting younger weanlings with an older same sex adult, or growing siblings (with or without a parent present), is pinning.

This is done by the more dominant animal requiring the other to submit by laying on their back and showing their belly (the submitting animal may urinate lightly as well). Usually only the submitting animal vocalizes, especially after the pin is initiated. The dominant animal maintains the pin and may dip their head onto the other animal (usually, this doesn't end in a bite, unless the submitting animal doesn't actually want to submit). Two very dominant animals are unlikely to bond well due to this pinning behavior. In a pairing where neither is particularly dominant, you may never see a pin unless one is quite 'annoying'.

When pairing to breed, you're likely to see this behavior from a doe not in heat when a male doesn't respect her space and attempts to breed her anyways. Some males get the lesson quickly, some get pinned multiple times a day until the doe decides he isn't the worst 😅

When pairing younger weanlings to an adult (honestly adult older than 16 weeks or so), the adult will teach the pups both manners for general colony life (no group piling to wrestle with the adults, for example is a correction i commonly see parents and unrelated adults alike teach via a pin after a 'surprise attack' by michevious 5 week olds), and for their individual bond when establishing dominance.

In a well established pair, its less likely to present as dramatically as often, and is replaced with a hamster choosing to turn over on their back to submit or communicate, small beeps when someone is annoyed, and the occasional slap or half pin when smaller corrections are ignored.

uhhh sorry for my ramble with a doodle i did at work

and sorry for how my handwriting changes from line to line

[fbwzoo]

So, I was a pretty avid hamster keeper in my younger days. Now my baby sister is getting into pet keeping and has a lil Syrian. But we got him much younger than I recall ever getting mine (he’s prepubescent) and to be gentle he’s kinda.... dumb. We got him a smaller wheel (that he doesn’t use) because he couldn’t turn the 12” one and he has a massive cage (5’ Long by 2.5’ wide) but seems to spend 90% Of his time in his deep (6-8”) burrows (the rest being scavenging for his food). Is he okay?

I’m not terribly familiar with hamsters, but honestly it sounds pretty normal to me? Hamsters are nocturnal, so unless you’re watching him all night, it’s hard to tell what he’s doing with all of his awake time. His cage is plenty large enough, so he might prefer to just use the space he has in that rather than using the wheel - especially if he has trouble with it. If he’s scavenging for his food, that’s a pretty good natural behavior! Enrichment is just supposed to be things that allow the animal to show natural behavior - maintaining a normal sleep schedule, digging burrows, searching for food & eating, moving around his territory all count. If you guys are worried, you could try doing more things to hide his food in that he has to try & get it out of (wrap it in paper, stuff it in toilet paper tubes with hay or tissues holding it in, etc.), but his behavior sounds okay to me (without being able to see if he’s showing any signs of illness).

[how-to-care-for-hamsters]

Hi! I recently got a Russian dwarf hamster like two weeks ago, shes been ok, let's me and my bf handle her, she nibbles and bites (only bites us sometimes)but is it normal for hamsters to randomly be VERY energetic? Like and was up ALL day and almost

con.: She was awake all day and almost all night running around her cage and on her wheel. She wasn’t like that before, but she’s still a baby so? Maybe it’s cause she’s just a baby? She kind of worries me sometimes, do u have any advice? Thank you! 😊

Hey, thanks for writing us!

Though I just wrote that sudden changes in a hamsters behaviour should be observed, a young energetic hamster in a new environment is nothing to worry about! Hamsters need some time to settle in and two weeks isn’t long, my own syrian needed like a month until he developed a steady sleep cycle. Your hamster is in an acclimatisation period, needs to explore her cage, make odor traces and get used to her new life! That’s why we recommend not to handle new hamsters too much, they are busy moving in and need time to get used to everything. But you don’t have to worry, especially since you seem to be really caring, I am sure that she’ll have a wonderful life once she has made herself at home :)

And depending on the season they are more or less active plus every hamster is different! Even older hamsters sometimes randomly wake up and start to rearrange their nest or run a bit in the wheel. If your hamster keeps being awake for a longer period of time you should watch out for signs of stress (it could also be a sign that the cage is too small) but as long as it’s just one or two days from time to time her behaviour is perfectly normal!

- r

[hammyadventures-blog]

Transcript for “Understanding Your Hamster's Behavior“ Video

English Transcript for the “Hamster Care: Understanding Your Hamster's Behavior“ Video on YouTube

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqE69Qggr0

[Video Description: The video is presented in bright rainbow colors. Each slide lasts about ten seconds and has white text conveying the following information:

Hey there! A lot of people come to me asking about how I bond so closely with Q-Tip. They often want to know what trick or technique I use to "get her to do" something. But the truth is, there's no fancy technique to it. I simply learned to read her behavior and respect her wishes. :] [smiley]

While there are certainly things you can do to help you bond with your hamster (and I will try to do a video on that subject another day), understanding her behavior is crucial. This will not only help you understand your hamster, but it will also help you to know when something is wrong with her.

Oftentimes when a hamster is ill, her behavior will change. She may become more aggressive or bite when touched (because it might hurt to be touched); she may become more fatigued (because of an infection, for example); or she may seem frantically energetic (indicating stress). So understanding your hammy's behavior is important.

The best way to understand your particular ham is to simply interact with her and get to know her. Each hamster, just like people, has her own personality, likes, dislikes, and quirks, and it's important to respect that. Some hamsters may show a wide range of emotions and behaviors, and others may show just a few.

For example, Q-Tip enjoys being rubbed and held. But a lot of hamsters, no matter how often or gently you try, just don't enjoy being rubbed or held. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong; it simply means you may not be able to do these things with this hamster. Some hamsters also take longer to feel comfortable with people enough to do these things.

So while this video is meant to help you with understanding some of the basics, please remember that each hamster will be a bit different. She will also behave differently with different people and other hamsters.

To demonstrate the different types of behavior, I will use footage of Q-Tip, but for the behaviors that demonstrate a hamster under duress, I will be using examples borrowed from other sources because I don't believe in stressing out an animal for demonstration's sake. Also, inflicting that sort of stress on a hamster, especially an older one such as Q-Tip, can be harmful to her health.

Before we look at visual examples, let's discuss the behaviors of hamsters in four categories: content/neutral, happy, distressed/frightened, and distressed/territorial. Let's begin with content.

CONTENT/NEUTRAL A content hamster generally has a relaxed body. She's curious, alert, sniffing around, accepts food from you, nests, digs or scratches around her house a bit, and might be busy doing hamster things such as taking a bath or pouching some food to take later.

She may even simply sit there listening and smelling things around her. If you startle her accidentally, she may nibble lightly at you or dart away quickly but then resume her relaxed position from before. Her ears will be up, to the side, relaxing backwards, or going indifferent directions as she listens to her environment. Some hamsters will even squeak loudly to get your attention or in excitement.

HAPPY A happy hamster will brux with her teeth, boggle her eyes, bop her head about, close her eyes part way or fully, bathe on or near you, and maybe even give you licks and gentle nibbles. If she feels very secure with you, she may even sleep or eat on or near you from time to time. Some hamsters will squeak gently, too.

Bruxing is when a rodent grinds her teeth together in contentment. It's a bit easier to see in larger rodents such as rats. If you want a great example of this, I suggest you check out @LilysRats on Instagram where her rats do these behaviors very regularly. :] [smiley]

Humans can also develop a disorder called "bruxism," in which we also grind our teeth down. But since humans' teeth don't continuously grow like rodents' do, this is unhealthy for us. It's normal behavior in rodents, though, and is great for keeping your hamster's teeth worn down to healthy lengths! :] [smiley]

Boggling is when a rodent's eyes wiggle about. It's a curious and adorable thing to see! I would recommend seeing great examples of this on Instagram again with @LilysMice; Q-Tip doesn't do this terribly often. lol

Head bopping is what I call a behavior Q-Tip regularly engages in. Some hamsters will do it a bit differently, but what Q-Tip does is a rapid bouncing of her head up and down, often with her eyes closed. This is usually in response to having her head rubbed in juuust the right spot and is normal behavior. :] [smiley] I affectionately call all these happy behaviors "hammy purring."

DISTRESSED/FRIGHTENED A distressed/frightened hamster will run away from you, might squeak shrilly (as though shrieking), hide under or behind toys when you're around, and may freeze in fear. A distressed hamster may also feel abnormally attached to her wheel and may even sleep in it as a permanent nesting site. This can be a sign of your hamster's home being too small, too.

If your ham is frightened, she may be reluctant to leave shadowy areas and will run away when you attempt to interact with her. She may also nip or bite you in fear if you startle her. Her ears may be stuck in a forward position as she is hyper alert for signs of danger, or she may have her ears pinned against her head and her eyes tightly closed. A hamster in a great deal of distress may also breathe very rapidly.

An insecure hamster will also keep food in her pouch constantly. This indicates that she doesn't feel safe enough to be without a food source. Generally, hamsters will use pouching as a means of carrying items from one place to another, making it a temporary behavior.

A hamster who is being ostracized or attacked by other hamsters, for example, may continuously pouch her food because other hamsters are preventing her from accessing the food.

On the other end of the spectrum, when a hamster is held and begins to depouch in your hand, particularly with her eyes closed, this can be a sign of stress as well. This often happens when she feels unable to control the situation or escape, such as when she is held on her back or is being scruffed.

DISTRESSED/TERRITORIAL An angry or territorial hamster will adopt an aggressive stance (head up, body lifted a bit off the ground, ears forward), may charge or chase you, will nibble intensely or even bite with the intent of injury, or squeak shrilly.

Hamsters that live in pairs or groups may demonstrate territorial behaviors toward one another, especially if there are not enough resources to go around. Hamsters will bicker with each other by "boxing" or pinning one another from time to time to establish social order; this is natural and shouldn't be confused for an actual fight in which the hamsters are trying to cause harm to one another.

A serious fight will often involve a hamster biting and attacking the rump of another or even the genitalia of the other hamster; sometimes they will go after the ears and eyes of the hamster, too. If you see that the bickering has escalated to fighting, the first and immediate step is to introduce them to a larger environment and to add an extra wheel, water bottle, and food bowl. This should help if their dispute is over resources.

However, sometimes some hamsters won't ever get along. If this intense fighting continues and/or escalates into one hamster or more bleeding, the hamsters must immediately be permanently housed separately in completely separated homes. If not, or if you try to later "reintroduce" them to one another, one or more hamsters will end up dead.

EXAMPLES So what do these behaviors look like? It's all well and fine to read about these things, but sometimes you need to know what they look and sound like to better understand. I'll share a few examples of some of these behaviors here, beginning with the unhappy signs, then ending with the happy ones. :] [smiley]

Please note: Watching some of these videos can be distressing, especially the ones in which the human is antagonizing the hamster. It can be very difficult to watch an animal be treated poorly or having to deal with a stressful situation, so please take care of yourself in watching the section demonstrating the unhappy behaviors.

I would also like to make it clear that it is unacceptable to instigate any animal because you find her reaction funny. I had to sift through many awful videos online to find these, and it was very disturbing and upsetting to see how many people thought it was funny to torment, scare, and abuse their hamsters.

I tried to choose the videos that were the least disturbing to share here, and I want to make it clear that deliberately scaring or harming or stressing your hamster out is not okay.

Hamsters are very susceptible to stress-caused diseases and can die easily from it, so by inflicting stress on your hamster because you find her reaction funny, you could potentially be leading to her death.

There's also the undeniable and blatant fact that hamsters are creatures deserving of respect; they may be small, but that does not, in any way, mean that they deserve less respect.

With that said, let's move on to the visual demonstrations of hamster behavior, beginning with the unhappy ones: Distressed/Frightened and Distressed/Territorial. Please note that the videos in this section may be disturbing to watch.

(Several video clips are shown here to demonstrate hamster behavior; each has a slide before it, informing the viewer of the behavior.)

Distressed/Frightened 1. Unhappy Squeaking/Fear (a hamster being prodded by a white-read human finger and screeching in fear) 2. Scared 1 (a dwarf hamster hiding in a plastic house and looking hesitant to come out) 3. Scared 2 (a Syrian hamster on a tabletop jumping and looking scared at some noises) 4. Defensive Attack/Fear (a hamster being blown on by a human off screen and screeching in fear while defending itself by frantically flapping its front arms) 5. Running Away (a video of a pet store employee attempting to gently catch a Roborovski hamster running away in a tank with several others)

Distressed/Territorial 1. Territorial/Serious Fighting (a video of two dwarf hamsters fighting seriously and attempting to harm one another) 2. Nesting in Wheel (a Syrian hamster in a cage that is inhumanely small nesting with toilet paper in its plastic wheel) 3. Territorial/Aggressive Biting/Angry Chatter (a protective dwarf hamster attacks a human hand with her teeth and makes angru chittering sounds with her teeth to defend her babies inside the cage)

Neutral/Content 1. Social Hierarchy/Bickering and Pinning (two videos demonstrating a few Roborovski hamsters boxing and pinning one another in social dominance displays) 2. Done with Petting (Q-Tip demonstrating she's done with being pet by moving around a lot) 3. Ready for Bed/Leave Me Alone Now Please (Q-Tip going off to bed) 4. Nesting (Q-Tip making a bed in white bedding under a box) 5. Content/Walking Around at Home (Q-Tip walking to her wheel and running in it casually) 6. Feels Safe with You/Climbing into Human Hand (Q-Tip running around and then into my hand) 7. Relaxed/Bathing (Q-Tip bathing on one of her toys in the shadows) 8. Thirsty/Normal Drinking (Q-Tip drinking water in her tank while sitting on a rock bed) 9. Trust/Taking Food from Hand (Q-Tip pouching oats from my hand) 10. Sleeping (Q-Tip sleeping behind her wheel with her ears pinned back) 11. Dreaming (a Syrian hamster lying flat out on its side and twitching in its sleep cutely) 12. Detection/"I Smell You!" (Q-Tip sniffing around as she smells me; I wiggle my fingers in the air to spread my scent) 13. Determination (Q-Tip wrestling walnut meat from its shell) 14. Depouching (Q-Tip unpouching a bunch of food from her left cheek in her tank)

Happy 1. Looking for You (Q-Tip running around the platform in her tank, sniffing the air as she looks for me with her ears up) 2. Sitting in Hand (Q-Tip sitting in my hand and resting against my chest) 3. Enjoyment (Q-Tip enjoying a homemade treat and looking happy) 4. Sleepy/Enjoyment (Q-Tip getting rubbed in my hand as she rests her eyes, looking sleepy) 5. Eating in Hand (Q-Tip sitting in my hand in her tank as she pulls food from her pouch to eat while she gets pet) 6. Playing (Q-Tip making a bunch of noise as she scratches and plays/thumps around in her yellow cardboard box) 7. Eating in Hand Belly Up (a dwarf hamster eating some popcorn in a brown-read hand, belly up) 8. Happy Squeaking, Licking, and Bruxing (a video of Q-Tip licking my hand as she gets rubbed, then pf her squeaking happily four times before beginning to brux)

(The video returns to slide format through the end.)

Remember: Your hamster is tiny, fluffy, and adorable, so pretty much everything she does will likely be adorable to you. But don't forget that just because it's adorable when she's upset doesn't mean she's not serious in her distress and that it's okay to ignore her distress.

As a final note, please keep in mind that if your hamster is displaying many signs of unhappy or distressed behavior, your first step in evaluating the problem is what you are doing that could be causing stress. You may not be doing anything deliberately, but oftentimes, we stress our hamsters without knowing it or even knowing why.

Evaluating your own behavior can be empowering because it means that de-stressing your hamster is within your ability! :D [big smiley] For example, if your hamster often becomes nippy with you at night when she doesn't during the day, she could simply want to be left alone, which you can easily do. :] [smiley]

Keep in mind that your hamster's house is vital to her happines, health, and well-being. If her environment is too small, she will feel pent up and stressed, which may lead to nipping, fear, or health issues. So if your behavior is fine, check out your ham's cage-- does it meet her needs?

Even if the cage meets the minimum size requirements for your country, it doesn't mean that every hamster will feel happy about that size. I would recommend that everyone attempt to follow the minimum size requirements for hamsters found in Europe and Germany-- they are generally regarded as the leaders in hamster care.

Here are the sizes recommended by the United States and Canada (keep in mind that these are generally recognized by leading members in hamster care as too small to be healthy):

360 square inches 24 inches by 15 inches 61 centimeters by 38 centimeters

Here are the sizes required for most of Europe: 589 square inches 31 inches by 19 inches 80 centimeters by 50 centimeters

Here are the sizes required by Germany: 741 square inches 39 inches by 19 inches 100 centimeters by 50 centimeters

Here are the sizes recommended by Germany: 1,521 square inches 39 inches by 39 inches 100 centimeters by 100 centimeters

If you're in doubt about what to get for your hamster's environment size, the best bet is to go as large as you can afford to. :] [smiley] Just be sure to fill the environment with plenty of activities for your hamster, too!

So there we have it! A general guide to helping you understand your hamster's behavior. I sincerely hope this video has been helpful to you! Please keep in mind that being respectful of your hamster's needs is the best way to form a happy relationship with her and that each hamster will be different.

[Image Description: A final green slide with white text next to a white heart. The text reads ‘Hope this helps! Happy hamming! Love, Jessi.’” The video ends with a subscription/like request next to a cute, close-up photo of Q-Tip sleeping upside down inside a white person's salmon and white shirt.]

[cryptid-fae]

My hamster is going ape-shit in her cage right now....

There must have been crack in that chex mix i gave her...