Something that I've been wanting to address for a while now is
why isn't Lenny in more videos?
I am often asked to show Lenny in more videos or to do a playtime or free roam video with Lenny
but unfortunately,
I just can't.
If you don't know who Lenny is, Lenny is my Long haired male Syrian hamster
and Lenny
is a ghost hamster
and by ghost hamster I don't mean a spirit in the sky floating around haunting me,
Lenny is 100% alive and well
the term "ghost hamster" is a term I stole from DogsHamsters on Instagram
but I think this term is very helpful for these types of hamsters
so what is a ghost hamster?
a ghost hamster is basically a hamster who either
doesn't come out until really really late in the night
or they wait until you've gone to bed
or they don't come out when the lights are on
or they don't come out when a human is around
and they usually don't like human interaction.
Even from the beginning, Lenny has always been sort of a ghost hamster
it may have gotten worse over time but even from the beginning he's never been a hamster who has
seeked out human interaction and rather just kept to himself.
There's one thing that a lot of people often get wrong and that is that hamsters NEED to
be interacted with or that they need to be played with every single day and that's not exactly true
a hamster can actually live perfectly fine without human interaction
of course you still need to give them food, water and spot clean their enclosure
but they don't need that physical touch of course there are some hamsters who absolutely love that
they love coming out of their enclosure they like just sitting on your hand or
they like to be pet but there are a lot of hamsters who are not like that
and when it comes to ghost hamsters there's some questions that need to be answered.
The first being how do you know if they are alive
or dead?
and that's a perfectly good question because if your hamster is a ghost
hamster that means you're probably not seeing them
so how will you know if they are alive?
and it's quite easy actually the first thing being food
this is the main way I know Lenny is alive and well
every night Lenny gets something different he either get's his seed mix,
his weight gain mush, or his vegetables
so there is at least something new for him to take every single day
and so when I set it out I leave go to bed in the morning I check if
something has been taken or if all the foods eaten then I'm like great Lenny is alive he's fine
if I were to come in and none of the food
was touched at all then I probably would set into panic mode and be like
I gotta find him
that is essentially the easiest way to figure out
whether or not a hamster is still getting up and active.
The next thing I recommend for honestly anybody
who owns a pet or has a pet room or a nocturnal animal
is a pet cam you can honestly get a pet camera from anywhere for pretty cheap I got mine
off of Amazon for $30 and it records anytime there is movement so that is super helpful
so often I can check in the morning look at the app and look through the
recordings I can go to the times I think Lenny would be awake and I can watch them
back and then that can tell me okay was Lenny awake or not and I can see
what he did in his enclosure I can spy on him without him knowing it's just super helpful
so that is definitely a really really big tip
if you have a ghost hamster
the next thing you can do is stay awake until your hamster is awake and sit in the dark or you can
set an alarm to wake up at like 1 in the morning or something like that to then go check on them
this is something I do at least once a week because I like to be able to weigh Lenny
and give physical health check and then I'll also give him a treat while he's out
and that is essentially all the interaction that I get with Lenny is once a week.
If your ghost hamster doesn't like lights or like to come out when the lights are on I would highly
recommend getting a dimmer switch I recently just got one and it's super duper helpful because then
you can just have it on the lowest dimming setting and then that way you can still like go in and
your hamster's not gonna be as scared because the light is quite low but it also makes it so you're
able to see things and you're not gonna trip on anything but you can also still see your hamster
another thing you can try is a red light bulb you can put this in a lamp or in the
main room if you want and hamster's cannot see red lights the same way they see the regular
type of light so it's kind of like still dark to them but you'll still be able to see them
I personally don't like red light I think they're creepy but that's
just my opinion and that's why I don't use one
another question to answer is
well how do you interact with your hamster or play with them
you don't
if you're hamster doesn't like interaction it's not something
you can force upon them and it can actually make things worse and make more scared of you
if you're forcing them to come out and play and interact with you
for some reason a lot of people before they get hamsters they just assume that a hamster
is going to be something like a dog or a cat who is going to like that human interaction and
don't get me wrong there are some hamsters who like that they like to come out but a majority
are not like that and then someone ends up with a hamster and they're like why don't
I ever see my hamster what is the point of having a hamster if I can't see them
if that is how you feel then I just highly don't recommend getting a hamster
choose a different more social type of animal because a lot of hamsters end up like this
I don't see Lenny besides once a week and that is just something I don't mind I don't
mind having a large enclosure where I'm not gonna see this animal 24/7 that's not
something that is needed to me I just know that I am giving him a happy healthy life
Sadie
were you looking for me
so that's why you guy don't get to see Lenny often
because I am not going to force Lenny to do something that he doesn't want to do
Lenny really doesn't like floor time or playtime I've tried it out
with him and it's just something that he's not too interested in
he's never initiated that he wants to come out for playtime
He's never wanted to jump up on my hand to show that he wants to be lifted into
another area or anything like that he's very very content in his house (cage)
which is fine because his enclosure is a proper sized enclosure so he does get a lot of enrichment
out of that and a lot of time is spent running in his wheel and everything so it's not something
that is necessary for Lenny and it's not something I'm going to force him to do just for a video
Sadie don't show them your butt
ah
now your butt's in my face
show them your purring
Hopefully this video was able to shed some more light on ghost
hamsters because I think they are a lot more common than a lot of people think
and if you guys have a ghost hamster let me know in the comments down below
because I'm curious
so I will see you guys in my next video
bye!
ugh you made me full of hair
I love you too but I'm filming
I love you too gigi's *smooch*