There are some days when you just... Really question how has any hamster ever managed to survive, live and even reproduce in the wild. This was certainly one of those days.
I took Ihku out from his terrarium just like usual and put him into his play pen. I had noticed a couple of days ago that his home stinks more than it should, so now I decided it was time to investigate what the heck he had been up to. Well, until this point he had been using his toilet box without any problems, but like I now found out, he had apparently decided that now he’d rather sleep in his own pee instead; his hollow coconut shell was a total mess.
Okay, no big deal, hamsters are idiots and just do that sometimes and no one really knows why. I took the coconut out and replaced it with a wooden hut that had been in the play pen for a year already and he had used it there just fine. When I put Ihku back to the terrarium he was a bit upset but accepted the hut soon enough, so I thought it was a mission accomplished. I left him to do his hamster things and went to another room, only to soon hear him screaming.
I of course went to see what the fuck was the problem now. The idiot animal had gotten stuck into a ridiculously small window of the wooden hut and couldn’t get out on his own. He had never before shown any interest towards it, but now he had managed to do this in literal minutes.
Well, he was fortunately easy enough to get out (I think he was screaming more from panic than anything else), but now the wooden hut was a no-go, too. Next option was an empty milk carton. He literally took one look at it and kicked it upside down.
The only option I had left was was this another wooden hut (no windows in this one) that has been in his terrarium for his whole life but I don’t think he has ever actually slept in it for reasons that only his tiny hamster brain can understand. I put it to the same place where the other huts had been, too, thinking that maybe its changed position would help him to understand that he can indeed sleep in it. After that he just looked like I had personally offended his hamster mama as well as the great god of the holy sunflower seeds.
Aaaand that’s where we are now! I have no other huts to offer for him, so now I’m just waiting to see if he will eventually swallow his pride and use the hut he has or will he sleep in his toilet or something. Whatever he chooses, nothing will likely surprise me at this point.
