I get up at the crack of dawn, so of course I also go to bed pretty early (according to most people, 10pm is early! Who knew?! :-) ). Yesterday I got home a lot later than normal, so stayed up longer than I usually do on a work night. And Vingdragån was all smiles and super sociable and couldn't wait to get out of his cage! He came running to me when I talked to him, instead of hiding in his house. He still doesn't like when you actively grab him, but he was happy to climb into my hands to be lifted out of the cage. He had a run in the sofa first, and then in the hamster proof bathroom. There is video!
Eating carrot on the roof of his house.
Still eating carrot. Towards the end of this video, you can really see silver highlights in his coat! I know that Black hamsters' long fur is grey, not black, but here it really does look like Vingdragån might be Silver-Black.
A few tumbles in the bathroom as well:
And I just had to include this. I was worried he'd be stuck there forever!:
This morning he was also very sociable and more than happy to climb out of his cage to get some running around in the sofa done.
Right now things are looking quite good taming-wise!
I normally get up for work at 5.30am on weekdays. I know it's insane. But Vingdragån is awake and kicking at that time of morning, which is great! I had him out of his cage yesterday morning, and this morning he was practically jumping up & down waiting to get out. He still didn't want me to lift him out of the cage, but he was more than ready to climb out on his own. Maybe I should start getting up 15 minutes earlier, so I really have time for him in the morning.... I'll have a think about that! ;-)
On the sofa this morning (kinda hard to handle the phone with one hand and hamster with the other at, did I mention that, 5.30 in the morning!):
He was so easy to deal with this morning, which is strange since he was a total scardycat last night and ran away when I approached his cage. Guess he's just more sociable at 5.30am than 8pm.
Whenever
Lada actually gets up at night before I go to bed, he always gets to run around
in his little hamster ball, usually for 20-60 minutes depending on how late it
is. He also gets 15 minutes of free range time in the guest bathroom, which is
the only room in the house with no cables, no big furniture to hide under, etc.
When
running around free like that, he always starts by scent marking the same
corner of the room. Always. The same corner. And then he runs around for a bit
until he gets tired of it and climbs back into his hamster ball.
I have been
trying for ages to get this on film! He normally runs around for 5-15 minutes
and then climbs into his ball. For some reason it has been hard to get on video!
But last night, finally, finally…!
Take 1:
No, wanted to run around some more.
Take 2:
Nope, not done yet.
Take 3:
Having a little climb on two-legs, not ready for ball yet!
Take 4:
Enough of this, let me out into the rest of the flat again! :-)
Just when I thought Lucky Lada was showing signs of brains. For three days in a row he has voluntarily approached the cage door when talked to, and then climbed into his ball.
Tonight though, about 15 minutes into his ball-running-time, he did the following. For minutes on end!
Back & forth, back & forth. I wonder what was so interesting about the balcony door! He didn't stop until I made him and returned him to his cage.
The last few days Lada has been climbing into his ball on his own. And after his little outing tonight, he clearly demonstrated that he has found the cage door!
Luckily you need to be Superhamster to open that door. It's a two-hand job for a human to open it, so I'm pretty sure Lada won't be able to, no matter how hard he tries.
I like that he's climbing into his ball on his own, so I don't have to catch him for that anymore. Now he just needs to learn to sit still in my hand...
Now, taming this little hamster has turned into a bit of a challenge, but today I picked him up and put him in the hamster ball. Nice way to get him used to the fact that my hand isn't dangerous!
He had a look around, ate some rolled oats and then peed on the floor. So then back in his Hamster Palace Cage he went.
Sooo my new hamster moved in last Saturday, February 8th. He was 5 weeks old at the time. Tiny!!
His name is Lucky Lada, on account of his living in a Rolls Royce cage. :-) He has a brand new rat cage all to himself. It measures a whopping 78cmx48cm, and is 78cm high! It's a gigantic hamster palace!
I haven't been able to get any good pictures yet, because he isn't quite tame and I'm trying not to give him a heart attack. I'm working on getting him to approach me. He's happy to come grab oats from my fingers, but he's still a bit jumpy. I have time. He'll come around eventually.
He's such a cutie pie though, isn't he :-D
I was supposed to get a hamster from a breeder this time, but she ran into trouble getting her hamster pregnant. I just couldn't wait until the summer... not when my local pet shop suddenly had little hamster babies. One of their employees breeds hamsters at home and then they sell them in the shop. That's practically like buying from a breeder ;-)
I do want a long haired hamster next time, but I hope Lucky Lada gets a good 2-4 years on him first. :-)
Unlike Knerten and Fjerten, it actually seems possible to tame Tanita. She is so aware of her surroundings! She's always looking, looking, looking at what's around her. She'll just sit there and look at you. The roborovskis never did that, and I can't recall that Perle did either.
And it's very hard to bribe her with food. Yes, broccoli is yummy, but it doesn't make her come running into my hand the way it did with the little gang. She has taken a liking to the hamster ball thingy though, so hold the ball close to the cage door and she'll jump right in :-) I'm currently trying to teach her that it's good to be awake at 8pm because that's when the ball is there!!! So that we get to see her at all. She sleeps a lot more than the little ones and doesn't show up in the daytime half so often as they did.
It seems Fjerten has finally recovered from the shock of the Great Escape. She's been climbing into my hand again for her morning snack this week. Here she is this morning:
Fjerten wasn't in a friendly mood today, though. Here are a few videos of her. She wasn't having any 'climbing into two-legs' hands' or anything today, oh no!
Fjerten:
Again:
Scary two-legs:
*sigh* What can you do. It'll be a while yet before she's as tame as Knerten.
Today was cage cleaning day. As usual the beasts spent some time in the digging box while their cages were being cleaned. Knerten was her usual, friendly self.
Here's Knerten having some rolled oats:
Knerten in my hands:
Knerten having cereal:
Knerten in trilltrall's hand (we had to bribe her with AllBran!):
Today I had my camera handy from the get-go and caught Fjerten on film climbing up her cage to get at her morning snack! You hardly ever see her climb, but lately she's been doing this when I approach her cage in the morning. Good old Pearl used to climb (and fall down) all the time.
Oh well. How about this:
She still has a tendency to nibble my fingers, but I suppose she'll stop eventually, like Knerten did. Fjerten is just... a little slower on the uptake. ;-)
Yeah, so, there's this taming project with these dwarf hamsters, right? And there's this one shy one, called Fjerten. Two-legs are so scaryscary and she generally runs and hides at the first hint of a two-legs nearby.
But NOT TODAY! Today Fjerten actually climbed all the way into my hand. Only for a second, but still. =) And she didn't bite. The little beast actually bit me the other day hard enough that it hurt. I suppose she wanted more cereal... But not today. Today she was all smiles and loveliness and whatnot. Watch:
Knerten is luvable! We've been away for a couple of days (spent a total of 3 hours in Germany on Thursday - no prizes for guessing where we've been!) and as usual I was wondering if the beasties had missed us at all.
Fjerten was nice and again almost climbed into my hand for her snacks. She didn't dare go all the way this time either, though, and I didn't have my camera handy, so...
Knerten has been asleep all day and didn't make an appearance until just now (9pm). When she did finally wake up, however, she was her usual friendly self as evidenced in video below:
Knerten is being a darling these days; very friendly and all. The last couple of days she has taken to climbing up my arm when she gets her evening snack. Of course I haven't filmed any of those occasions.... until today. :-D Obviously she didn't climb quite as much when I had my camera ready, but at least a little:
Happy. =) We've been away for the past 3 weekends and I was worried the animals had forgot what little I might have managed to hammer into their little heads. However, Knerten was nice and friendly tonight and came to fetch cereal from my hand no problemo. She's a sweetie, she is! (Fjerten, however, is still useless...)
Yesterday it was time to clean cages again and I figured it would be another good opportunity to get some footage + get the dwarfs used to being handled.
Got off to a bad start: I mistakenly assumed Knerten was asleep in her house and so just placed her house in the digging box. Then proceeded the take her cage apart so I could clean it, only to discover that she wasn't in fact in her house. Turned out she had been asleep in the cage, in a little nest she'd made for herself. Of course she freaked out completely when my removing her roof woke her up. I had to make a grab for her before she leapt out on the floor. She wasn't happy. Then she came out of her house to find snacks only once while in the digging box. At that point I picked her up again and she shrieeeekkked. The way only Fjerten has done before. *sigh* I think this project is doomed!! And are dwarf hamsters really supposed to make that screeching sound??
I didn't get any footage of Knerten in the box yesterday at all. Here she is after I'd cleaned her cage, having a sand bath. She was acting so weird, just sitting there doing nothing for a while. Don't think it really shows in the video, though.
She also did a great deal of running last night.
Fjerten wasn't any better, but at least she made a little bit of an appearance while in the box:
