It really started when Richelle got him. We got back into the car and she wanted Sokki to go into the run-about ball she'd brought with her instead of traveling home in a little cardboard box. That way she could hold him in her lap and watch him. I didn't really want her to make the transfer because I knew he'd probably bite and when he did, I figured she'd let go of him. The car has far to many small places where a baby hamster can hide so I made the transfer. He clawed, bit, squealed, and wet all over my hand but I got him in the ball. I also managed to injure one little finger which is probably why he clawed, bit, squealed, and wet all over my hand.
Sokki's habitat. The look-out tower is his favorite place and is where he eats, sleeps, and ...um... smells up the place.Okay, so now he's leary of me. I try to tame him by holding him for a few seconds at a time when he's still in the cage but he clearly doesn't like it. About a week ago, I picked him up again and he squealed and kept squealing. Then he went stiff - still squealing. I opened my hand to let him scamper off and he didn't move. I tilted my hand to encourage him and he rolled off my hand stiff as a board onto his back still squealing. I thought he was having a heart attack and seizure simultaneously. The thought screaming through my head was that I'd killed my daughter's hamster right in front of her. Suddenly, he stopped squealing, flipped himself over and scurried up a tube to safety. WHEW!
Stashing his food. He crams most of his food into his cheek pouches and hides it. At first, it was right here but now it's up in his look-out tower.At about this point in time, I purchased a natural product that neutralizes the hamster smell in his body and makes him and his output production much less odorous. It works quite well but the little rodent had to get used to the altered taste of his water. He basically didn't drink for almost two days and I was getting very worried. He wasn't running around all that much and was sleeping quite a bit. I kept thinking sentences with no endings. "If that hamster dies...." "If he doesn't start drinking water...." "If I've killed Sokki....." "I wonder if I could...."
Finally, one night I just couldn't sleep very well. I kept dreaming of the little guy and the dreams ran the gamut of nothing wrong with him at all to dying in convulsions on the cage floor. I kept getting up and checking on him. At about 2am, I finally started reading Richelle's hamster book in the "Diseases" section. I knew that hamsters prefer a temp range from 65 - 80 but the book gave me the impression that the little buggers like it more constant with a variance of about three degrees either way. The bedroom was hovering around 66 at night and getting up to about 75 during the day so I hauled in the space heater and flipped it on low.
It worked!! When I checked on him around 6am, he was drinking water as if he.....well.....hadn't had any for a couple of days. Later, I heard him running in the wheel. He improved rapidly and in just a couple of days was pretty much back to normal and growing.
You can bet your last dollar that I haven't tried to pick him up since! He is taming down, though, getting used to our voices and we talk to him a lot. He sniffs at my hand instead of pinning back his ears and getting defensive.
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