Hamster acting weird! Help!

Question
Hi. I recently got hamster. He was 4 1 weeks old when I got him and now he is 6 1/2 weeks old. A couple of nights ago I noticed he was acting different. He had been running around and playing on his wheel earlier in the day, just like he usually did. He has a 2-story cage with a tube running between the "floors." I had gone to open the top part of 2nd floor and he immediately ran into the tube....and stayed there. It looked like he was stuck, so my boyfriend took a pencil and lightly poked his butt with the eraser end. He didn't move. I started freaking out, so my bf put a tiny piece of banana on the bottom floor outside of the tube, hoping that would coax him out of the tube. We left him alone and later checked on him and saw that he had taken the banana and had retreated back to the top. The next day I went to check on the hamster and opened the top part of the cage as usual, and again he ran into the tube. I just left him alone. This morning, I went to check on him again. He had pushed almost all of the bedding that was on the 2nd floor down the tube and it was packed almost halfway up the tube!! I had my boyfriend unplug the tube, because the hamster wouldn't be able to get to his food or water. Once my bf did this, I again opened the top and saw that the hamster had taken a bunch of food and stored it up there, and the hamster again ran into the tube when I opened the lid.

What is wrong with him? He was fine, then he was acting like this. Is he just scared or what? We have been trying to slowly tame him, and he has let us touch him a few times but doesn't seem to like it and will either run away or roll over. We've also been bitten a couple times. Is he acting funny because he is scared of us?

Please help me as much as you can. I really don't want him to be sick. I've only had him 2 weeks.....


Answer
Hello. Awwww it seems that your hamster has figured out that he likes the tube better than anything else. He's just being a hamster. Some hamsters don't like to be touched that's just normal. The only time I pet my hamster is when he comes to the cage door and comes out the cage. It took him a few months to do this. Hamsters aren't very smart creatures that's for sure. It seems that he favors the tube more even though it isn't the best place for him to be. He's not sick or anything he's just being a silly hamster that is trying to figure out if you are a threat or not. He's just a baby as well. It takes time. My hamster does the same thing sometimes with his bedding. It's all normal. It's good that you unstuffed the tubing though. It will take him some to realize that everything is downstairs and he shouldn't do that. I think it took my hamster two months or so. It just appears hamsters aren't the brightest thing on the planet so you gotta kinda just be patient. :-) Don't worry about anything though. He's healthy and fine, just a normal hamster. :-) Good luck with him. :)