Gizmo exploring his clean and shiny cage

Gizmo is my Winter White Dwarf Hamster, he is around 4 months old and is very friendly.  He is surprisingly tame for a dwarf hamster and has been this way since day 3 of bringing him home.  The one thing he does get grumpy at however, is when his things get moved around his cage.  I try to keep everything where it is, but, it is a live and learn process, for instance having the sand bath at the very front of the cage was not my brightest idea ever. The sand was too close to his sleeping area, it wasn't very private for him, and, the Perspex got really dusty.  Upon cleaning his cage this time, I moved his sand bath to the back, in the opposite corner from his sleeping space.  He got grumpy.  Now even when Gizmo is grumpy he doesn't tend to bite, he just refuses to step on to my hand and be picked up, he is huffy more than grumpy.  Anyway, this morning he woke up and started to explore a little so I grabbed a quick video of him rummaging around his new, clean surroundings.

Introduction to Loki

Loki is a male Russian Dwarf Hamster with a Campbell dominant gene. He is around 9 month old and weighs 41g. His weight fluctuates from 45g to 40g over monthly weigh ins so we don't worry too much about this. Loki came to us as a rescue with his ex cage mate, Odin, from someone who couldn't spend as much time with them as they had originally intended. Originally, the two boys had been housed together, as many experienced hamster owners know, this rarely ends happily. 

Loki had been attacked by Odin and ended up needing antibiotic cream for his stomach. The owner had separated them and Odin had flourished, Loki had not however, he had become highly anxious and bit frequently. It was when the two were separated that the owner realised how time consuming it was to give quality time to each of the two hamsters. We took them both and got them both Savic Hamster heavens as the pet shop had sold the previous owner cages that were too small for them. Loki became very territorial at first, biting anyone that put their hand in the cage, hissing at them and basically looking terrified. We spent a lot of time getting to know him and trying to gain his trust.

 We really do have a soft spot for Loki as he is our own little special needs boy. When we first got him we noticed that he was forever falling off his little ledge in the Hamster Heaven and he had major problems climbing up a plastic ramp in the cage. We had three Russian dwarfs in the same set up at the time and he just could not seem to have the strength in his back legs to push him up the ramp like the other two (Gizmo & Odin). We noticed also that when he stood on his back legs he fell backwards and if he was standing up to grab the bars of the cage he missed and tumbled through the gap onto the cage floor. We were using a Savic Hamster Heaven so the fall was not from a great height but still enough to concern us.

We have since come to the conclusion that his back legs are slightly underdeveloped or that he received nerve damage from his fight with his brother. He is also extremely short sighted, even more so than a hamster normally is. Loki does not see your hand coming from either side so it frightens him severely if your hand suddenly appears from nowhere and he still isn't good at climbing up ramps so we have used wooden platforms and ladders for him to climb around on and this works well for him.

Loki also hordes everything, when we clean him out we can fill a cereal bowl with the food he has stored in several different places around his cage, we think this is due to his cage sharing days with Odin. He still occasionally hisses if he is doesn't expect you to be in his cage but we always talk to him as we enter his domain now to let him know we are there, on the occasion he has been sleeping and not heard us he will hiss or nip at our hands. So far he has not drawn blood and the nips are more of a warning than a danger. We love our special little boy though, he constantly makes us chuckle with his hyper antics and his cute little face makes us smile every day. I have made a short compilation of videos to show Loki's first birthday with us.