Hamster Flipping

RE: Hamster Flipping

Alison Clare Hickman — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:05:37 GMT

Yay Celine!

Love the information. Agree. Thanks for your input - learning curve, me.

Marvellous reply.

Regards

Ali h

RE: Hamster Flipping

Celine — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 11:07:04 GMT

If the very plausible medical explanation above is not the cause then....Animals in captivity may exhibit stereotypic behaviour and whilst this is not desirable it is not necessarily demonstrative that the animal has a medical condition. Stereotypies can result from a frustration at not being able to perform natural behaviours or just because the animal fell into a pattern and gets a nice endorphin boost when it performs repetitive behaviours. So we can say the animal may have experienced lower than optimal welfare at some point (because even if the welfare is improved with lots of enrichment or enclosure changes the behaviour often persists, albeit usually reduced in frequency) but it is not necessarily detrimental to the animal unless it involves self-mutilation etc. Stereotypies make an animal or human feel good, that's why they are perfomed! (how many people twiddle their hair or drum their fingers? That's a stereotypy!)

Having said that this was shared amongst a zookeeper group I belong to and our general consensus/assumption was that it WAS a stereotypic behaviour (because running on a hamster wheel is actually a stereotypic behaviour!) and that it was an extreme case and the hamster was probably expending a hell of a lot of energy doing this. Also it looked like the enclosure it was in was overstocked with animals so this stressor may have exacerbated the behaviour. Reducing the stocking density in the enclosure and providing enrichment may help but this is a viral video so chances of you actually making contact with the person who originally filmed the video / owns the animals is incredibly slim. You could potentially report it to Facebook etc for violating FB standards -> depicts animal abuse but the person reviewing it would need to have an understanding of animal behaviour, so.....

RE: Hamster Flipping

Alison Clare Hickman — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 10:32:40 GMT

Hi,

Info found on a search -

. . . (some) hamsters are born with behavioural problems such as repetitive, compulsive circling or back-flipping. These conditions are not well-understood, but are probably caused by incorrect neurological development and may be genetic. These conditions seem to be more prevalent in dwarf hamsters than Syrian hamsters. . .

All searches I found offered a similar explanation. . . some even suggested the hamsters are okay living with the condition (if not too severe) and by simply making their cage environment safer to live in / to avoid injury their hamster could lead a 'happy life'. Not sure I personally agree with that, over , say PTS, as I wouldn't be sure there wasn't any 'hidden' pain/suffering involved in the condition. . .but there you are. . .

So, yes, I am also appalled at the lack of understanding shown by the FB poster; however I think a nice and polite offer to inform and educate the poster about the condition might be the key to this. . .

Hope this helps?

Ali h