To let my hamster be a house hamster?

[DifficultSituation19]

I rescued a hamster about 4 months ago who had had a pretty shit life up until then (she was about 8 months old when I got her).

She had never really been handled, but is now super tame and friendly. Her (very large) cage is on the floor of the living room, and since she’s become tamer I’ve been just opening the door of the cage and letting her free roam around the living room every evening, usually for 3-4 hours, sometimes longer. When she’s tired she gets back in her cage and puts herself back to bed.

Last night I was —three sheets to the wind— tired, and fell asleep while she was having her run around. This morning, when I went downstairs, she wasn’t in her house. No sign of her all day, but this evening she woke up and has been running around as normal, popping back into her cage every now and again for food and drinks or a quick run on her wheel.

I closed her cage door at about 10.30, and her little face broke my heart! She just sat at the door of her cage looking very sad indeed. She’s now out running around again. So I’m thinking, people have house rabbits, how about a house hamster? I’d keep her confined to the living room and she’d have the option of being in her cage if she wanted to be there (and I’d obviously put all her food in there).

Is this a bonkers idea? She has a sand bath, soil, deep substrate, and more toys and treats than you can shake a stick at in her cage, but she’d far rather not be in there. We don’t have any other pets that could munch her, and the dc are well trained at keeping the doors closed.

Can you get a buddy for peanut and call him Eminem :-)

Oh my god I am in LOVE with peanut!!!

The paws up picture wins the Internet forever.

She's the cutest hamster I've ever seen!

But don't let her run loose. I had one as a kid. I used to let him run about (supervised) on the upstairs landing and up and down the stairs but one day the bugger made a run for the bathroom and dived down the hole behind the sink. He spent two nights in the walls/floorboards, scratching at them like something out of a horror film. My dad refused to take up floorboards to get him out. I eventually got him back, only because he happened to sit and scratch under a short floorboard that my dad was happy to take up. He was fine, although very thin and covered in cobwebs.

She is the cutest most perfect hammiest hamster I've ever seen 🐹!! I had ratties (Dumbos) which we let out but only supervised...they were still chewing wires (incl one who climbed by Xmas tree, looked me in my eye, held up the Xmas lights and BIT the wire clean through!!!) But they always went back to their cage to wee or poo. Such pristine girlies!!!

So pretty and photogenic she could be an Instagram influencer for other hamsters.

Sorry but that's 1 nice hamster you've got there. What about an inflatable paddling pool you can put up in the house so she can have a nice run round without getting herself lost or stuck somewhere

I think she’d be a bit sad at just having a paddling pool to run around in after having free reign of the living room for months. She loves climbing too so she’d miss that. She’s just reappeared from behind the bookcase, dd spotted her. I am going to shut her in her cage tonight, sad face or not. Have been looking at bigger cages too, I’m going away for a couple of weeks during the holidays and someone is coming in to look after her but she’s not going to have the same level of freedom she has when I’m here, so I’d like to get her a bigger cage before then.

(Excuse dd’s filthy hands, we’ve just got back from doing the horses 😂)

Oh what a cutie!

Make your whole living room a giant hamster cage and share the cage with your hampster

@aridane that’s basically what’s happening already 😂

Sorry one more, I really need to do some work and stop taking photos of the hamster

😍😍😍😍😍
cuteness overload - thanks for the new pics he’s so gorgeous.....that little expression on his face and the white hands....he is perfect 😍😍😍😍😍

Actually looks like a stuffie toy in that last pic 🥰🥰

I love her dainty white gloves. What a lady.

Sorry - yes ‘she’ is far too pretty to be a ‘he’

This one says hello!

Oh @saladf1ngers so cute!!!

That’s not a sad hamster face that’s the face of a hamster who is using emotional blackmail to put her quest for world domination back on track

My daughter's soppy long haired male Syrian. Spoiled rotten and currently living in the hallway as it's cooler than the spare room!

She also adopted a perfectly spherical grey Russian Dwarf who moves at warp speed and bites...

When I was younger we had the whole hamster escaped under floorboards / dad managed to put a hole in water pipe trying to lift boards / emergency call out plumber...

• all because my sister let her hamster have the run of her room (which contained the airing cupboard).

@NestOfSwipers

That hamster is prettier than I will ever be and I can't even get mad about it because it's so beautiful.

❣️❣️❣️

@NestOfSwipers I agree that’s one very cute hamster. Do you have to groom
Him to keep him looking lovely? @saladf1ngers yours is lovely too, the grey and white ones are so cute.

@saladf1ngers love your little one, another of my favourite colours (sable roan), I had a lovely one once.

This thread is right up my street, I used to breed and show hamsters (and am a qualified judge!) but haven’t had any for a while, miss the little furry buggers.

I was left fostering my DDs hamster when she went off to uni. We have a very large family bathroom that is very well boarded and sealed so gave the hammy a nightly free range run -there’s a reasonably comfortable chair, so I used to sit and read and supervise the hamsterobics until she had had enough and she would climb up my leg and sit on my lap.

I did realise at the time that there was an element of empty nest displacement going on !