Christopher blocks access to her nest

Christopher in her nest, with a blocked tube

Hamsters are small, they don't live long. Given their small bodies, it comes as no surprise that their brains are not the size of cows or humans. Nevertheless, they have them, and it should be obvious to even the most casual of observers that something is going on in those brains. Just the fact that we don't know yet what is going on does not mean nothing is going on.

Case in point: I just reattached a nesting ball to the Habitrail Cristal cage that my current hamster Christopher has taken up residence in.

She promptly brought her food to it, including the two hazelnuts she has been trying to breach for weeks now. She also brought bedding down, and then construction really started. Almost all the bedding she had brought down, she pushed back into the upward tube, leaving no bedding in the ball.

She went to sleep, the ball started to become humid on the inside. When she awoke and eventually decided to climb up, I removed the ball, threw out the wet bedding and put her food into the cage. The ball was then cleaned and put back into its place with nothing.

Christopher in her nest, with lots of condensation

Christopher heard that something was happening, climbed down, saw the empty ball, and -undaunted- brought back all her food into the ball, followed by new bedding. She covered the food with the bedding, went back to play upstairs, and when she came down again to sleep, she pushed all the bedding back into the tube.

Before sleeping however, she had one last task to perform: a good pee on her food. Needless to say, this led to even more condensation in her ball, and the perfumes coming from it had taken a distinct turn for the worse.

Yesterday evening, same scenario except for one difference: she had brought down less bedding than the previous days, although she did push it back into the tube before going to sleep. When I woke up, however, she had taken back the bedding and the tube was now open. Unsurprisingly, there was no condensation in the ball now. None.

I am curious as to what will happen next!