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Why does my hamster fill his wheel with sawdust2007-11-24 22:19:22

My hamster has a couple or more times filled his wheel with the sawdust from his cage floor...litterally crammed in top to bottom!! (He has a modular 'cage' with a solid external wheel and tubes all over the place). This activity has kept him awake for hours after he would normally go to sleep. Why is he doing it?? I have seen hamsters fill tubes before, perhaps if it is cold and they want to try to hibernate, but nothing like this!! Any answers?

Answers:

He is simply turning the wheel into a den. By packing it full, he can then hollow out a tiny hole for himself to curl up and sleep in.

Do you have any other sleeping places for him? Even if you did, he may still choose the wheel as his favorite. My hamster loved to make a nest UNDER his wheel. He would pack it as tight as it would go and then sleep mashed between the shavings and the underside of the wheel. He had 2 other wooden sleeping huts to choose from and he preferred the wheel.

Not all hamsters are the same but many tend to have strange behaviors like this that cant really be explained, only understood. He has decided that he likes that wheel to sleep in. Simple as that.

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they do this like they lived in the burrows in the wild, it makes them feel safe. mine takes its food in there too and then spins in the external wheel flinging it everywhere!!lol

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I'm sure your hamster has a reason for doing this. Does he pee in his wheel (we had a hamster once who would pee in her wheel.. yuck)? Did he sleep in the wheel afterwards? Maybe he just got an idea in his head or perhaps you had the TV on and he was watching too many of those home-decorating programs?

One of my hamsters does this. He's a funny little guy and who knows what's going on in his hamster mind, but I'm sure that he's plotting how to escape. :-)

My other hamster likes to push shavings through all the habitrail tunnels and block up one end of the tunnel. We figure that this is some natural instinct to block tunnels so predators can't get at them. She hasnt' filled her wheel full of shavings.. she's busy enough with the tunnels!

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Your hamster probally doesn't like the wheel and wants to sleep in it. You might want to get a different wheel.