Taking care of your hamster

I have a hamster and before I got him I looked at every book I could find and every website for all the information I could get my hands on. So I can understand if you want to do the same, you probably want the best for your new furry friend and want him to live as long as possible. So here I'm going to give you some tips that I have learned and hope you learn some useful things.

About them. The first thing you need to know is that a hamster is nocturnal and mine goes to sleep at around 6:45 am and gets up at around 7:30 so they sleep quite a lot. The reason for all this sleep is probably because they run on their wheel a total of about 8 km per night. Why do they do this? Well before hamsters were domesticated they lived in the desert and there they had to go very long distances to find food. Then they also have pouches in their cheeks to put the food for while they're looking. And then later they come back to their home and empty out their cheek pouches. Hamsters also have four front teeth which are always growing and this why they will need something to chew on or else the teeth will grow too far and eventually they won't be able to eat and will die. You can buy many different types chewing wood, but my hamster never uses them and instead he decided to gnaw at the metal bars of his cage which is very noisy! Hamsters have very poor eye sight but they have extremely good sense of smell, so if you want to handle your hamster then make sure your hands don't smell of food. The last thing you need to know is that unless they have diarrhea it's only the pee that smells and not the poo, the poo should be hard and they will poo much more than they will pee.

What to buy. First you obviously need a cage and for this I would recommend a metal bared cage. Although if you would prefer to make your own then I think this is a very good idea but you need to research this a lot to make sure the cage is safe and secure. The minimum size of cage you should get is 50cm x 35cm, remember the bigger the better. The maximum space between the bars for dwarf hamsters is 0.5 cm and for other normal hamsters it's about 1 cm. It's always best to have tubes attached to the cage because hamsters love to go in there and in their original home in the desert they had tunnels. Just remember that it's very important to find a good cage and get one form a friend if you can (that's what I did and it's a lot cheaper :). Now you need a wheel, try and get wheel that isn't noisy because my hamster has kept me up quite a few nights with his stupid wheel! My problems with wheels were first that it broke, then my next one was too big for the cage, the one I have now is one of the metal noisy ones and it's very annoying but you really need it. For water I recommend you get one of those bottles that goes through the cage bars because with a dish you need to take out any bedding, food, or fur out of the water everyday.

Food. First you're going to need some of the standered hamster food. It will normally have these little pellets with lots of fiber, there's also probably little grains, sunflower seeds and then if you get a fancy one you can find all sorts of other stuff. This is great for them because it give them all their fiber, and protein but they should also be having some vegetables every night. I'm going to be a bit of a hypocrite right now because what I've learned and what I'll tell you is to give your hamster a few vegetables. But I will only give my hamster a couple and it's normally the same kind and then some days I will forget. You can also give your hamster some treats like bread and cereal. One thing I want you to know is that if you give it some lettuce then don't give too much because this can cause liver problems but it's okay in small quantities. Go here for my full list of things they can and can't eat which I got on a hamster website. If you're as paranoid as me you'll need it.

Excercise. As you may have already guessed hamsters need lots and lots of excercise which is why they need a hamster wheel in their cage. Make sure that the wheel works properly and is accesible because this is pretty much their only thing to do besides eating and sleeping. It's also nice to give him or her an excersice ball for when you're cleaning the cage or just to give it some fun. Remember if you put it in the ball then you have to make sure he can't go down the stairs cause they would die if they went down a normal flight of stairs and if it was just a few stairs then he would probably be quite tramatized. They also like to go into some tubes which you can attach to your cage depending on the cage you get and these don't provide much excercise but it's fun for them to be able to crawl around there.

Cleaning. This is very important and if the cage is not cleaned enough then it can cause various health problems for your hamster. You should be cleaning the cage for your hamster about every week although lately I haven't been doing this as much but in my case I find that my hamster doesn't pee much in the cage but he pees in the place where he sleeps. As for the place where mine sleeps which is attached to his tubes, I normally clean it out every two or three days but you should be able to determine when to do it by how much it smells. To clean it you need to first put the bedding and all the food in the garbage, then spray the area with some "hamster/gerbil and small animal" disinfectant. Now wipe out the disinfectant with some paper towel or if you want to be more environmentally friendly then you could just use a cloth. If you're cleaning out the base of the cage then you should try and find some bedding that isn't too dirty and keep that for after you've cleaned because they say that the hamster is more comfortable if it recognizes the smell around.

Handling. Hamsters are very nervous creatures and can be scared easily. You want to make sure that your hamster is nice and sociable so please follow these steps to learn how to handle your hamster. So you get your hamster and go home and then you put it in it's cage and leave it alone for a few days. Then after it starts to get used to the new smell and environment you can start to bring bits of food by putting your hand in and then after a week or so he will get used to your hand coming in his cage and associate this with food. After awhile you can start to also just put your hand in with no food and let your hamster smell and see if he will go on your hand. At around two weeks of having the hamster you can pick him or her up unless he or she will go right onto your hand. Then put him on your hand for just a little while maybe every second day and remember to be quiet. They can also hear very well and may get nervous easily.

He escaped! This happens very often with hamsters and depending on your cage it could be very easy for your hamster to escape or it could be difficult. This happened to me once where my hamster escaped his cage although it was very silly on my part. I left the cage door open thinking that I would see him come out because I wanted him to come out and play mouse running in my room so I got a little scared. When I looked closely I could see that it was actually my hamster and it was lucky I found him when I did because he could have hid under my bed. Usually hamsters will go somewhere like in a drawer or under a bed and when they do escape what you should do is if you know what room he is probably in then close all the doors and windows right away and maybe do this for other rooms near it. Then put some food and bedding in a container in the corner of the room you think he is in or in two or three rooms and then when he walks in you close the container and then put him in his cage. Of course you could make a better contraption than a container then that would be great. I would recommend you put some food he really likes in the container, like broccoli, sunflower seeds, lettuce, or some of those treats you can buy at a pet store.

Last updated: Sunday the 13th of April, 2008