My DD being bullied. Going to get hamster. Advice please!

[Hamsterthoughts]

So... long story.

Dealing with the school and it will improve.
However I am desperate to do something to make her happier in the interim.

She has been desperate for a hamster for last two years. She’s deeply caring and very responsible, so I have no doubts about her caring for it (with my help)

I’m very house proud though. So that’s concerning!

My questions
What are they like as hamsters?
What’s upkeep like?
Are they affectionate?
Do they smell?!
Best place to keep them?
Best breed to get?

Thanks so much

My male hamster also smelt less than my female, I wonder if thats a thing?

I also agree about rats, I had them in my childhood they aren't bitey.

Not affectionate. They move very fast, which is fun but you need to be careful not to let them escape (our hamster climbed out of its little run that we bought, despite it being supposedly impossible for it to do so).

My DD lost interest as mainly it was asleep when she was awake.

On the plus side, they don't live too long, they don't smell if you keep them cleaned out once a week, and it stopped my DD begging for a dog or a rabbit for a few years.

I did not like the hamster.

Hamsters shouldn’t be kept as pets. .

In the wild the average hamster will travel approximately three miles, and we somehow feel it’s acceptable to keep them in a cage a meter or two in diameter...

Aside from that, they’re nocturnal, they can bite, hard, and they don’t live very long. And they drop dead seemingly without warning.

Don’t do it.

Oh I forgot my male was an escape artist he did escape a few times. 😂
My friends escaped as a child she never found him.

We've had 3 now (1 Syrian and 2 Campbells dwarfs) and ours were lovely pets

None of ours have ever bitten apart from once at the very start
They do run in their wheels at night so definitely don't keep in bedroom however our guys learnt that it was in their interests to get up when there were people home. I expect they slept when we were out at work/ home

I probably wouldn't go quite as far as affectionate but ours could be called and would come if you tapped on the bars and said their names, could be hand fed treats, enjoyed burrowing up sleeves and in pockets and when very tame they would often go to sleep on DDs hand or in her pocket.

We got ours when DD was lonely coming home from secondary school and being on her own and that was very successful as they would always come and greet her

The Syrian (not so much the dwarf ones) toilet trained itself. It would only use one corner for toileting and so it was very easy to keep that clean and not smelly.

No sorry I was wrong. On average they travel 9.6km or 5.1 miles

In a night.

I got one for my dd who was 'desperate'. She loved him but I ended up doing all the work for and doing the bulk of the handling because dd was scared of his teeth. It was smelly so lots of cleaning out required, at least twice a week. Also be aware they are very noisy at night. He was supposed to go in dd's room but she couldn't sleep due to the constant noise so he ended up in the lounge. I think he lived until about 3 years. Dd was distraught but didn't ask for another one. I don't think he was as fun as she'd imagined - sleeping all day.
I much prefer the cat. She's fabulous company and for the most part is no trouble at all. We adopted her at 3 so we didn't have to deal with the kitten stage.

"In the wild the average hamster will travel approximately three miles, and we somehow feel it’s acceptable to keep them in a cage a meter or two in diameter..."

That's what put me off buying another one when I found out they travel vast distances in the wild.

I had one as a child, I don’t think they make great pets either. Bitey and smelly (if not cleaned out properly).

But then lots of people have them and like them! So I don’t know what I was missing!

I remember being very excited about getting it, and then quickly bored of it as it gave me nothing back, and then resented it as it but me hard (Well, I remember blood anyway!) - and then its cage was smelly as my parents had decided cleaning it was my responsibility, but I was 8 and not going to do that because it bit me and I didn’t want to touch it again!

What about 2 (one would be lonely) guinea pigs. They can live indoors or out. Ideally indoors in Winter, they are a lot more responsive than hamsters.
Or a cat.
We have had quite a few hamsters... However I don't think they are the best pets.

Guinea pigs are much better than hamsters but more work.

Our boys were very affectionate and loved a cuddle.

I did all the cage cleaning but my DD fed the, brushed them etc. They were great first pets.

Still miss you Harry and Ron!

*bit me hard, not but me hard!

We have guinea pigs, a cat and most recently a Syrian hamster. He sleeps in my pre-teen daughter's bedroom. He's been tame and affectionate since day 1. He normally wakes around 6/7pm and keeps her company as she does homework, plays games etc in her room. When he comes downstairs he plods around on the coffee table exploring cups, bowls, coasters.
The guinea pigs are old men now and love each other's company. Yes, they are affectionate but would rather seek each other out when having lap/exercise time.

I'm not looking forward to the day one dies, as I'm not prepared to rehome another and have a cycle of guinea pigs for the rest of my life

The cat is amazing, but unfortunately not the cuddly lap type we'd hoped for. She stops briefly to be petted, then carries on with more important stuff.

I had rats and mice in the past, the rats, both of them succumbed young, and expensively to cancer. The mice also died young. I had gerbils, who were hell bet on escape.

I would have rats again if I could guarantee we'd be spared the heartbreak. But I would 100% have another Syrian hamster.

If it's a hamster she wants, then get her a hamster. There are very few negatives in my experience.

They stink to high heaven no matter what you do.

We have a Syrian hamster that is over 2.5 years old now.
At first he was so quick that he was difficult for my kids to handle and I had to put in a lot of extra time to tame him. He is lovely now and has never bitten.
He does wake up really late - usually after 10pm, so we had to wake him to get him out.

I would look at hamster homes on Pinterest before buying a small cage. Many people have used an Ikea detolf to house their hamsters and the results are amazing.
We joined a number of cages together by the tubes to provide our hamster with more space as a single cage definitely isn't big enough. We also use an empty bath as an extra safe space for him to run around in.

We've had a few over the years. Their personalities varied from tame and affectionate to ferocious! Need to be cleaned out at least twice a week as they do get smelly. Gerbils actually are much lower maintenance and quite entertaining to watch. We had a pair of gerbils in a glass aquarium two thirds full of a mix of compost and sawdust and they tunnel and make nests. They only need to be cleaned out every couple of weeks or so and don't get smelly

@mylittleyumyum when our sibling piggy died we brought the remaining one into the busiest part of the house and made sure it was out and cuddled at every opportunity, he lived on for another 4/5 years.

www.guineapiggles.co.uk/how-to-look-after-a-guinea-pig

This website is brilliant

Wouldn’t recommend a hamster. Difficult to keep and not affectionate, plus they don’t live long.
Kitten is the way forward IMO. All they need is a clean litter tray (get a covered one with carbon filters, it doesn’t smell) and fed twice a day. And lots of affection of course! Girl cats are easier than boy cats IMO. Of course it’s a much larger pet that a hamster so might not be your ideal but honestly, easiest to keep pet I’ve ever had and my cats bring me much love and joy

I agree with PP I also prefer female kittens, and I think they are easier to keep than guinea pigs.
Super easy pet with lots of affection.
And absolutely adorable.

Hamsters are cute!
If you lie a jam jar on its side at the back of the cage hamster can use it to wee in. Much easier to clean- they have smelly, concentrated wee

I had 3 hamsters as a child. Two were boys both lovely. I had a girl one as well, very snarley and bitey. Used to hang off my finger when I tried to pick her up.

Had another boy hamster as an adult. He was absolutely lovely. Friendly and would sit on my knee and come out at the sound of my voice! (He was a special one)
I’d go for a boy hamster if possible (although that may just be coincidence).

Never smelly, just had to be regularly cleaned out!

If possible though I’d go for guinea pigs. I had 6 (in twos) as a child. All of them were affectionate and same amount of work as hamsters really.

Hamsters can be lovely.

Definitely go for a Syrian. They are larger and very chubby / cuddly. Russian / dwarf breeds are tiny and incredibly fast and skittish and harder to handle. Go for a male. I believe two males can live together but only if they are brothers. I have only ever had solitary ones and as long as you give them lots of attention they are fine with that.

Syrian hamsters are very clean animals. They will groom themselves in the evenings (to find a girlfriend ) so they like a clean house.

Don't skimp on sawdust. Buy loads of it, give them a big house and just do a full change of all the sawdust every week. You can get lemon and cedar scented and it makes their fur smell beautiful.

They will toilet in a few specific areas, so give that a good scrub when you do a full clean out weekly. You will see the staining from their pee.

They can be very affectionate and will carefully take treats (sunflower seeds etc) from your fingers without biting you. They need to gnaw to keep their teeth trimmed and sharp so buy a bag of dog biscuits for them to chew on.

They are nocturnal so don't have them in a bedroom as they can be noisy at night. Best time to play with them is in the evening before your daughter goes to bed. Possibly early morning too. They make themselves incredibly cosy in their cotton wool beds and they won't take kindly to being woken if they are not in the mood 😆 I had one who made his bed in a small room off his main house, it had a clear lid so I could look down and see him clearly, all snuggled in his bed, it was absolutely adorable.

When I was a hamster owner Habitrail was the housing I used, you could add bits on to keep expanding it, I'm not sure if they still make it.

If you do get a hamster, get Syrian as others have said, and also toilet train it with a litter tray as you would for a cat. Get a suitably hamster-sized glass jar and put some bedding with wee on in it. Hamster will learn to wee there and you can wash the jar out each day to stay on top of the smell. The rest of the hamster's space will also be lovely and clean.

A lot of good advice from @Fudgefeet

A few pp's have raised the point about the distance they would travel in the wild. This is true and something to be considered with things like hamsters, rabbits and guinea pigs. It's easy to keep something like that in a cage or a hutch but it is incredibly cruel. You really need to get the absolutely biggest house you can for a hamster, and let it out to run around in a safe environment as much as possible.