help! hamster escaped!

Henry is our hamster. Santa gave him to my daughter, Hope last year. He is big and strong, and has escaped. He climbed on top of his hanging water bottle, pushed the lid back and clibed out in the middle of the night last night. I have looked all over downstairs and can't find him! She will be awake soon, and will freak out! Any ideas to locate a missing hamster?
drat that Henry!
denise

 

When ours did that (Sadie is a sneaky girl) we got a small live trap at lowes or ace (can't remember) and baited it with her favorite food.
Carol

 

well, yesterday was a very long day.. Hope and I searched and searched. We made a baited trap. We made the house dark so he would think it was night. We were quiet and stilll..we were loud and scary..nothing. Finally, I sent her off to play and I flipped on the tv. Guess what was on? a movie about a mouse that is waaay smarter than the 2 men trying to catch/kill it (I think it was called Mouse Trap)..it was supposed to be a comedy, but I was getting so aggravated I had to turn it off. Henry must've seen the movie...
Last night when my boyfriend get home from work he says, I'll bet Henry climbed inside that couch..you know it's a sofabed, right?? He opens up the couch and there sits Henry, making a nest out of a wayward Halloween candy wrapper.
Mystery solved!
I now have 3 heavy objects on top of Henry's cage to keep the lid on. :
denise

 

glad henry is safe and sound in his home
Carol

 

thanks! me too, but I don't think he should hold his breath for a present from Santa Claus! hee hee!
Denise

 

LOL! ;D ;D ;D I am glad the hamster is sound and well!

What happened to my family, a couple of years ago, when we still had our hamster, is that he escaped as well. But he didn't open the cage door himself. He had those colorful tubes attached to the cage inside of which he could walk. And one night ... my cunning cat (Tiger, the Tabby) pushed one of the tubes open. The hamster escaped. This happened during the night, so nobody saw if the cat harassed the hamster in any way. The only thing we knew is that the tube was off the cage and there was no hamster inside, lol. And that our cat was unusually excited ... hmm, right? LOL, so anyway, we started calling and calling the hamster but nothing. We thought at some point that maybe the cat ate the hamster! But after a while, we hear "scratch, scratch, scratch" somewhere ... so we started listening around the entire house. And we found it. He was sitting behind a radiator in my parents' room, in a hole in the wall below the radiator. My dad had to take the whole radiator out, plus he had to drill part of the wall as well ... to get the hamster out. We finally got him out, and besides being very hungry, he was all well No scratches of any kind, no broken bones, nothing - so the cat was very  lucky that time!!! ;D

 

glad hes found - I started laughing histarically when I read that he was making a nest ut of a candy wrapper!!! lol !!!!!!! Miley lol

 

Glad he's back safely. I've had mice escape before, so I know how horrible it is when you can't find them....

 

I must tell you this so you have fair warning. Hulk, my hamster, used to escape all the time. He was very friendly and tame and would wander into the living room when my roomate and I were watching TV, kind of peer at us like they do and amble towards the kitchen. I would scoop him up and put him on the table and he would contentedly explore there. I tried a number of things: wiring the cage lid shut (it turned out he was actually lifting the cage with his nose enough to wriggle under it--the ones with clasps didn't exist at the time I don't think) putting a book on it (still not heavy enough.) I finally but a two pound metal speaker that was broken on top of his cage. I actually watched him trying to lift the cage and unable to, peering up at the top and looking confused. I said "Ha, figure that one out!" and left. Later on that evening I heard this tremendous CRASH that made my roomate and I jump out of our seats. I hurried into the room and found the speaker on the floor and Hulk huddled in a ball on the floor of his cage. He was breathing very slowly as though he was hibernating. I gently blew on him but he didn't respond. I realized that in some weird way he'd actually fainted or something so I left him alone.

I have no idea how he did that but he never tried to escape again.