Baby Hamster

GuessWhoEh

I bought a baby hamster from a pet store. It's female. Brown, black and white. She is gorgeous. I got the cage, wheel, little home, hay, fur, water and food and also an ball for her to play in while I'm cleaning the cage. I also got cleaning supplies for the cage as well.

She's been in the cage a few hours now and I let her out earlier on for 10 minutes then out her back in. I've gotten a few of the necessary tips off the girl that works in the pet store and she was brilliant

As anyone that has a hamster, have they Any friendly advice?

Cherry Blossom

When you say 'fur' if you mean that fluffy pet bedding then dump it as its dangerous. It can cause a blockage if swallowed and can cause injury if it gets wrapped around little feet. You can use plain white toilet paper or kitchen roll instead. They shred it up and arrange it how they like and it makes a warm comfy bed.

One_Of_Shanks

Yeah. Block off the chimney/fire place.

Seriously, it was yonks ago but I had a lovely long haired hamster (called Pele) and he was running around the sitting room and suddenly slipped under the smallest of gaps under the fire grate (gas fire wasnt on) and he was away up the chimney.

Two days later when I thought he was a gonner he re-appeared around midnight by running up the leg of my flatmate's pyjamas.

No idea how he did it but point being close off every imaginable tiny gap while watching her because they can literally squeeze through a gap the size of your thumb.

They're really cute and funny and all but it's unfortunate that they want to be up at night when most owners dont. So try to give her a bit of freedom as late in the evening as possible.

They're not really suited for modern day human 9-5 living imo because of the night time in the cage. But if you could change jobs and get home around 1am every morning then yer golden!

seriously.... just try to give her as much time running around as possible, as late in the evening as possible.

baby and crumble

Like Cherry Blossom said, get rid of the fur/ cotton wool stuff. It's dangerous and tbh unnecessary. Torn up tissue is just as good/ better and far cheaper.

I'd also get rid of the hay. The hard "sticks" can catch in the hamsters cheek pouches and cause damage. You can get sawdust in any pet shop and it will be far better.

I also recommend you get some chinchilla sand- hammies love digging and cleaning their fur in it.

You can also litter train hamsters- I've done it for all the ones I've had. I wait until I know where the favourite spot is in the cage, then I put a small bowl of sawdust or chinchilla sand there. The quickly start to pee just in there which makes cleaning much easier.

Make sure that as your baby hamster grows that the wheel is big enough. A hamster should be able to run at speed in their wheel without their back being curved. What I have done in the past is make sure I get the next size wheel from the hamster I have. So if I have a dwarf I get a wheel thats advertised for a Syrian hamster. If I have a Syrian I get a wheel that says it's for a rat. That's really important.

Make sure that there are wooden hamster gnaws in the cage all the time. Hamster teeth never stop growing, they have to gnaw every day to keep their teeth at a safe size for their mouths.

Experiment with fresh veggies to supplement their feed. Be careful that what you're giving is safe. Good things to try are carrot, Apple, brocolli and grapes. You can also give dried mealworms for protein.

If you have a space without too many books and crannies, consider letting your hammie run around free. We had a corridor in our apartment that when we shut all the doors was great for our guys to run around. We used to have toys they only got when they were out so they had new environments to explore every night.

You can make great toys and tunnels with lollipop sticks and glue. If the glue is child safe then it's hamster safe!

Toilet rolls, stuffed with tissue each end and filled with seeds and treats are great to get them excercising their brains. It stimulates their hunting reflexes. They have to dig out the tissue to get the food. Then they can play in the toilet roll!

Most of all, enjoy your hamster. They are so sweet and they all have their own little personalities. Make sure you don't wake them up just to play with them though. It's not good for them. They'll wake up on their own!

Raminahobbin

Yay hamster!! They're so much fun I've had mine since august, and found these tips very helpful:

1) sawdust is apparently very bad for hamster's respiratory system, as it's too dusty. Google it and you'll see a lot of warnings against it. Use hemp, available in all MaxiZoos/online, or carefresh, from petstop/online. You can use aspen shavings too, but I wasn't able to find it anywhere. I like the hemp stuff, personally.

2) leave the hamster alone for 3-5 days to acclimatise- their life until now has likely been very traumatic, and it's nice to let the hamster settle for a few days before trying to pick them up or let them out.

3) start taming with just getting the hamster used to your hand being in the cage (after the initial settling in period). If you're using tissue as bedding, rub it over your body first to get the hamster used to your scent.

4) progress to putting food in the centre of your palm & letting the hamster take it. Then, if you have a bath tub, sit into it & put the hamster in with you. Let them crawl all over you and get used to being on you.

Each taming stage might take a few days, don't rush it & pay attention to your hamster's body language/noises to know if you're taking it too quickly or not.

baby and crumble

Raminahobbin wrote: »

1) sawdust is apparently very bad for hamster's respiratory system, as it's too dusty. Google it and you'll see a lot of warnings against it. Use hemp, available in all MaxiZoos/online, or carefresh, from petstop/online. You can use aspen shavings too, but I wasn't able to find it anywhere. I like the hemp stuff, personally.

In all honesty, I think this is dependent on the type of wood used. I've had hamsters for years using various different bedding substrates and one of mine used to sneeze like mad on the recycled paper stuff. She only stopped when we used sawdust. To be fair when I say sawdust it's actually wood shavings I mean. I never had any problem wth hammies and the wood shavings you get commercially.

Owryan

Talking of food my hamster loved, really loved cooked chicken.

cruais

I had 2 hamsters on separate occasions when I was younger.
Unfortunatly I found them both dead in their cage. When I asked the vet, he told me that they can take heart attacks from constantly running on the wheel.

He recommended removing the wheel for a few hours a day to give them a break, as apparently they become addicted to it!

Knine

cruais wrote: »

I had 2 hamsters on separate occasions when I was younger.
Unfortunatly I found them both dead in their cage. When I asked the vet, he told me that they can take heart attacks from constantly running on the wheel.

He recommended removing the wheel for a few hours a day to give them a break, as apparently they become addicted to it!

Have had loads of hamsters & everyone of them lived to old age. They all used their wheels non stop. I think you were just very unlucky.

njs030

Make sure the cage is properly closed. No matter what we did my first hamster was able to open his and would roam the house at night, we'd regularly meet him on the stairs or in the bathroom at 2 or 3am. He'd always go back in to sleep for the day too

His name was scamp appropriately enough!!

Wexy86

notjustsweet wrote: »

Make sure the cage is properly closed.

This!

Had one years ago and he got out, couldn't be found and then heard him under the floorboard - must have got down where the gap was for the radiator pipes - few hours later he was safe with about 10 floorboard up, needless to say my father put little extra clasp on the top of the cage after that and that was the last hamster we had