Hamsters
Habitat Requirements
- NO wire cages or tube cages! These do not offer enough space for a hamster to freely roam and can cause damage to the hamster’s feet and teeth.
- Minimum 600 sq inches of unbroken floor space, meaning horizontal and not a vertical multi floor habitat. We reccomend creating your own bin cage out of a 50 gallon storage bin, a 40 gallon aquarium, or any popular brands of larger hamster cages such as Niteangel.
- A minimum of 10 inches deep bedding to provide adequate burrow space.
- Try to keep habitat in a quiet area of the home, as hamsters sleep during the day.
Bedding
- Best option: carefresh natural bedding (paper-based) with timothy hay mixed in to help support tunnels.
- DO NOT give your hamster wood shavings as a primary bedding, as most woods contain chemicals harmful to hamsters. Wood also does not provide structural support for burrows.
- Spot clean your hamsters cage daily and do a monthly deep clean. Never fully remove all bedding as hamsters need to smell themselves to feel safe.
Food
- We recommend Higgins Sunburst as the primary food source for your hamster.
When choosing food for your hamster, you can either give them a pellet, like Oxbow, or give them a seed mix, like Higgins. We usually recommend seed mix as you can sprinkle the seed mix across your habitat, stimulating the hamster’s natural foraging instincts. Both diet options are okay AS LONG AS YOU… - …ALWAYS provide fruits and veggies for your hamster! Hamsters need both fresh fruit and veggies as well as their seed or pellet meal.
- ALWAYS RESEARCH WHETHER OR NOT THE FRUIT AND VEGGIES YOU WANT TO GIVE ARE SAFE! Hamsters have many dietary restrictions, such as not being able to eat food that could become stuck in their mouth pouch.
Playtime & Enrichment
- Hamsters should always have access to a wheel in their habitat. Hamsters run an average of 5.0 miles a night!
- NO HAMSTER BALLS! Hamster balls area common mistake hamster owner’s make. These running balls can cause lung issues in your hamster due to poor ventilation, stress your hamster out, and/or they can get their toes stuck in the air slits causing injury.
- We recommend providing your hamster with different texture options in their habitat. Your hamster actually has a very cute digging instinct and has a lot of fun playing around in dirt and sand! We provide all our hamsters with Niteangel hamster safe sand, as well as reptile safe coconut fiber for dirt.
- A hiding hamster is a happy hamster! You should provide your hamster with a lot of options for coverage, such as the common houses sold at most pet stores, or hamster compartment maze boxes! There are so many fun options for your hamster, as they have the instinct to organize their belongings in different compartments. Offering your hamster many different hideouts and surfaces will make them feel safe while giving them a playground!
- While everyone wants to play with their hamster all the time, hamsters are nocturnal. Nocturnal means they are asleep during the day and awake at night. Most hamsters have a wake-up routine usually beginning from 8:00-10:00 p.m. These are the hours you should play with your hamster, as waking them up will make them grumpy and not like you very much, as well as making them feel unsafe.
- A great idea for hamster owners is to have a play pen for your hamster outside of their habitat, where the walls are not climbable and you can provide your friend with an array of toys and treats.
Illness
- The more common illness in hamsters is respiratory illness. Always check your hamsters breathing when you have the chance and check their nose and eyes to see if they are clear. Take them to a vet immediately if anything seems off, such as noise when breathing or gunk around the eyes.
- Hamsters are susceptible to tumors, and should have their abdomen checked for firmness in the chance they have a tumor. This is the more common place for one to occur.
- Moniter your hamster’s coat often as thinning of hair is a very common sign of illness.
- Keep an eye out for signs of stress and unhappiness in your hamster, such as pacing and climbing. You may need a larger habitat or to rearrange your current one.