two weeks ago I adopted my male Chinese hamster Waddles
and he is my first Chinese hamster so I wasn't sure what to expect when taming him
The first thing I do when I bring home a hamster is I give them time to settle in this means I
don't interact with them and stick to just giving food and water as needed for Waddles
I waited three days and while waiting for those days to pass I also took some toilet paper which
hamsters can use as a safe nesting material and I rub this on my clean hands and arms and
this way he could bring it back to his nest and learn my scent without me having to be in there
and then when the time came for me to interact with him he would be more familiar with my scent
After I gave him a couple of days to settle in I wanted to create a routine with him
this meant I would come in when he was awake and offer him a treat
and let him sniff me after that I would leave and do the same thing the next day
taming doesn't need to be done all at once many people expect
their hamster to become tame in one day when that's usually not the case
I find small positive interactions can further lead to a better trusting bond
which is why I tend to keep it short with Waddles I usually only stick around for a
couple of minutes while I'm feeding him treats and letting him sniff me and things like that
by the next day Waddles had already recognized me as the lady who had
brought him a snack and that is exactly what I wanted him to think I wanted him
to see me as a good thing and someone who brings good things and not scary things
I even offered my hand out to Waddles and surprisingly he
accepted the offer to climb aboard I was a little bit nervous but he did really really well
the next day I came in and I put a sunflower seed into my
hand throughout the taming I use a lot of different healthy treats like sunflower seeds,
low sugar baby snacks, dried vegetables and a lot of the time I use just his regular seed mix
I was pretty patient with Waddles and I didn't force him to go onto my hand
I offered it there in case he would like to climb onto it and if he didn't that was fine
on the fourth day once again there was Waddles waiting for me to bring him his snacks
he actually let me give him a little bit of pets while he was eating some of his sprays
and then I offered him some dried vegetables which he gladly accepted
then I offered him my hand to climb aboard if he wanted to
and you may ask did he bite or nibble me at all he did nibble me a couple of times throughout our
taming sessions it wasn't anything bad and this is not something you can really avoid with hamsters
hamsters use their mouths a lot for testing out whether or not something is food or
if they're gonna get a reaction out of it
also during this time Waddles realized this was a great time to eat a bunch of the flax
seeds and I took the opportunity to just pet him which he was perfectly fine with
I also realized his little prehensile tail was trying to curl around my finger any time
he got near it which quite honestly was adorable
day five Waddles is waiting for me on his grapevine wood once again
this time I came in with a little handful of his seed mix
and this is a lot healthier than just giving treats every day because it's their regular
diet and they're gonna need it anyways so might as well use it during taming
another thing that I did with Waddles was that I tapped on objects to get his attention
and now he's kind of learned that when I tap on something he'll
come see me this time I was able to lift him out of his enclosure and we kind of just practiced
walking back and forth on my hands and he did a really good job
definitely really curious and he is a lot speedier than most species that I've owned
and we ended that with a yummy little treat
there you can see me tapping on the wood again and Waddles comes running
this time I have some sunflower seeds on my palm for him to snag
on day eight I got the chance to lift him out of the enclosure again
so this time I just set him on my lap to just kind of walk around
he thought a lot of my clothing was food though I reassured him that they were not food
i also thought it was hilarious he decided to chillax on my hand while eating his
seeds while his back end was in the air
so as you can tell as the days go by Waddles keeps getting more curious and more brave
and more friendly with me I definitely would recommend creating a routine with your hamster
and including treats and snacks and go slow with them a lot of people try to rush
the process and they want their hamster to be tame the day they get them
which isn't always going to happen a lot of the times your hamster is going to need a lot of time
to adjust hamsters just have not been domesticated long enough and a lot of hamsters that we
purchase or adopt may have been through a lot of trauma or they weren't handled very much by humans
the last thing that I have tried so far is using my playpen this is a bunch of
solid storage grids that I zip-tied together and this makes an amazing playpen
and you can make it as big or as small as you want. So I lifted Waddles into there and
then I added a couple of different toys and accessories for him to keep occupied and
of course, I have the seed mix and I just let him climb onto my hand if he wants to
and that is how much progress we've made so far I'm very impressed as, to be honest, the first
night I wasn't sure how taming was going to go because the first night he didn't actually come
out so I wasn't sure if he was going to be more difficult or not he comes out around
10 pm every night and I never wake him up to tame him I always wait for him to be awake
so I hope seeing the method of taming that I've chosen can help anyone who is unsure or
struggling to try and get their hamster to trust them and maybe this method will work for you
I will see you guys in my next video bye