Hi guys. I’m having a little problem that I’m not sure what to do about. It’s been about 3 weeks now, and every, single, night, Java will fiercely chew at the blanket at the bottom of his cage once my boyfriend and I go to bed. He chews like he’s literally going crazy – like he will do these small nips and pulls rapidly all over this corner on his pen, along with occasionally yanking the blanket really hard and chewing or banging the pen’s bars. He will do this for anywhere between 5-20 minutes before finally settling down.
Usually, this type of behavior is … boredom? Or not enough time out of the pen. But, Java’s pen is open at all times when we’re at home, and I would say he averages 6-10 hours of “hop time” unless we both end up working really odd shifts that overlap and leave Java home alone for most of the day (which is rare). When he’s out, he’ll actually end up snoozing in this box we cut for him for a while, especially while we cook dinner (he doesn’t like when we cook … I’ve assumed that it’s all the sizzling sounds and unusual aromas). But we spend a lot of time with him, petting and handing him things to chew or throw. And almost everyday, we have a nightly treat time with a banana, where he’ll dash around chasing one of us and then we all enjoy the banana together.
Any suggestions about this, though? This is becoming a little bit of an inconvenience for us when we try to turn out the lights and settle down for bed. On top of that, though, is he angry with us or something? He’s so rapidly ripping up his blanket and banging the pen walls. I feel like he’s really upset about something. But in the morning, he’s totally normal, binkies and everything while I get him breakfast. He does bunny 500’s, tramples my boyfriend, and smells his face. All the usual. He’s only like this when we go to bed, and then sometimes when we close his pen because we’re about to leave somewhere – that’s about 50/50. But going to bed has been every single night now.
We tried giving him extra attention (my boyfriend spent over an hour just petting and snuggling with Java last night). Last night was actually the worst – it was nearly 25 min that he was violently banging the pen walls.
Please let me know what we can do – or what we might be doing wrong.
UPDATE: He just started doing it now …. I don’t know why. I just took a video of it to show you guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YyBei1kcdI&feature=youtu.be
He wasn’t doing it nearly as rapidly as he usually does at night, this was just him kinda pulling at the blanket. He does this in that corner and the opposite corner as well.