Trying to build a hamsterrific home

Since March I have had a new room mate: a female Roborovski hamster called Hilinä Viuhuliina (born Jan 9th 2012; arrived March 6th). Since I tend to get over-enthusiastic about anything new and I am nerdy enough to want to get as much information I can, I have read countless texts and blog posts about hamsters, their preferences and keeping them healthy. This has resulted in a project of improving her inhabitat to give a happy and interesting life for the 2-3 years she (hopefully) will be with me.

Hilinä the Robo's time with me started with only a coconut house, a hay nest, two cups for food (one for dry, one for fresh), a pool for sand bathing and a drinking bottle. In the beginning she was a restless little hamster who runned around the terrarium constantly and/or jumped in and out of the sand pool all the time...

So I decided I needed to do something to make her life more interesting. First of all I started putting seeds and/or oat grain into the hay nest. It is hilarious how her bum goes up and down when she tries to find them in the nest!

I also made her a swing and a tube by crocheting. The tube you can see in the sand pool video and the swing here:

However, she quickly ate holes in both and I took them out, as doubted it would be healthy for her to get the yarn into her digestive system (especially as it is dyed).

The next swing was made of pieces of a willow branch tied together with sewing thread. I also cut some toilet paper cartridges into a set of tubes to run around her house. The tubes have an opening towards the glass but as the glass is there she feels like she is inside a tunnel, and spends a lot of time in these, sometimes eating, other times resting.

The red-brown hut behind the swing is an ex-candle lantern. It had holes in a square shape on two sides; I used a hammer to make the holes connect on the other side. The lantern broke into two in the process, so I used salt dough to glue the pieces together, as it is 100 % edible.

In this video the placement of the swing is new and she falls when trying to get into it, but today she is quite quick and sure to jump from the hut to the swing. In this video she has a flying saucer wheel as the wooden one was being cleaned.

Also, in the current setting the running wheel is at the center as she spends so much time in it and the sand pool wasn't really being used in the old setting where it was on the other end of the terrarium.

She jumps from the wheel to the green pool filled with coarse sand (hamster toilet sand), might roll and or rest and then jumps back:

The coarse sand was put there to encourage her to use the 'real' sand pool for bathing. The green one can then be emptied every few days since she mostly poos in it (since it's right next to the wheel). The poo also falls between the coarse sand grains so it at least looks like less like rolling in poo... She does love spending time in the sand pool, too, and often digs there for a very long time in between bathing. Here are some close-ups of the current setting:

The hut complex.

A mixture of organic grains and seeds I made myself.
The cup is not always there, if I hide seeds/grains
in the terrarium I take it out.

Hilinä in the tunnel.

The 'candle-hut' has its lid turned upside down
and I put some Oxbow hamster food in it.
The swing usually has some treat in it
(a nut or a sunflower seed)

The sand pool is the most important thing
in this end of the terrarium.

This is an atypical picture -
typically the sand is piled up at the other end from digging.

Finally, here is a short 15 sec video of behavior I have been wondering about. Hilinä has been doing this to walls mostly, but also to ceramic cups/pools she has in her terrarium. I wonder if it's just the digging reflex getting out of hand, or if this is some kind of hamster way to mark her territory. Or something else?

P.S. Sorry for the poor quality of the videos! As she is a nocturnal animal, there usually isn't enough light to catch both light and movement with my cheap video camera. One day this will be a great excuse to buy a more expensive one. ;)

P.P.S. In case someone wonders, the bedding is a mixture of hay and wood shavings. There is a thicker layer of bedding under her hut to give her room for digging in the nest. The bedding under the wheel is a layer of wooden cat litter pellets and some shavings to discourage her from digging there and to keep the wheel on "solid" ground. When I clean, I put the hay and the pellets first and then pour shavings on top --> the hay keeps the tunnels/structures in place. She also has some shredded toilet paper available in the 'candle-hut' which she takes into her nest to make it more comfortable.