My Hamster Hates Me 😢

Croûton had some teething issues during the first 10 days after adopting her…she started chewing part of the base of the wooden enclosure, which I knew was a possibility beforehand but she was fine for most of the first week. After a few days I emailed Happy Hamsters about it, and also realised that her usual route into the burrow had become blocked off by a wooden hide due to her burrowing underneath it. I’d assumed she’d just dig another way out if she was really stuck and didn’t interpret previous signs of frustrations from her. But I sorted that out and blocked off the areas she’d chewed, and it all went away! Happy Hamsters also confirmed that this would frustrate her!

I’ve come to realise that Croûton really likes predictability and hates things changing in her enclosure. Unfortunately though during the chewing, I had to disturb her a couple of times in order to dig into the bedding to check out the damage…I felt like such a predator digging into her burrow…as they would in the wild! Weirdly she didn’t shy away on those occasions but tried to climb up towards the sudden daylight.

These disruptions definitely caused her to become a bit traumatised though and she started getting up later and later and later…so that now I hardly see her. There’ve been multiple times though when she was totally comfortable with me giving her food from my hand whilst she was out, or filling the water bowl etc, so it’s a weird combination of shyness and seeming to be curious. She always seemed so friendly but shied away at the first smell of my finger. So anyway early on I reached an understanding that I’d just be limited to watching her.

Last night I prepared her some broccoli and banana and put them in a little bowl with the intention to hold the bowl whilst she takes some of the food, or even put some food on my hand so she would crawl onto it to get it, to try to tame her a bit. I left the bowl on the top of the enclosure then later saw her on top of her new cork log trying to get to it, so I got up and moved towards her enclosure to give her the food…and as soon as she noticed me she launched herself off the cork log and scurried into her burrow faster than I’ve ever seen her move…it was shocking! She was in total flight mode, a 10/10 scurry.

Seems like I got off on the wrong foot with her due to the initial chewing and it will be difficult to for her to get comfortable. The new cork log I’ve got her and some other additions have definitely helped her though, and I’ve been making home-made chew toys which she loves. At first I was taking this all very personally and feeling very bad about it, but I’m learning to be a bit more objective and just think that she might’ve been treated badly in her previous life, who knows. She’s probably hating that my sleep has been out of sync again lately too, so I’ve been awake at night hours. Once I’ve fixed it again I’ll probably never see her, but oh well! It’s a shame because she’s so cute and otherwise energetic still for a 2 year old hamster.

Update: She did just let me help her with her carrot treat as I left it too high up on the skewer toy thing…and she stood there calmly whilst I slid it down! 🥺

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