Hamsters advice pls - we might be getting one.

[jellyjelly]

I am trying to get a pet for my son who is 4.5 yrs. He has held a rat and really liked that and would like a mouse but i have the opportunity to get a hamster cage and bits for free.

What sort of hamster shall i get. I would like one that ds can hold/cuddle.

I had russian hansters as a kid but they ate each other- was not pretty.

Russian hamsters can be really vicious, I'd get a syrian hamster, they're larger too so easier to handle, alhough 4 is still pretty young for a small rodent. Make sure you handle it lots and gently so that it gets used to being handled, although even when tame mine were always stroppy when woken up, and needed to be treated carefully.

syrian hamsters are def better for small children, but even those aren't the best pets. Rats are far better, a lot bigger and easier to handle and much more docile. I'd wait and get a rat.

My 9yr old dd has a hamster - she copes fine, but my 4yr old ds struggles. If you go ahead with this now it will effectively be YOUR pet that your ds gets to play with a bit.
And our experience of hamsters so far - a female (depsite it being sold as a male) Syrian, is that it is mostly pretty good to handle, makes a lot of noise at the wrong time of night - so don't expect it to be in his room, and is pretty absent during daylight hours.
Avoid rotastack type setups if you want easy clean out, and also anything with metal bars if you don't want to be driven mad with it gnawing on them.

Ours now resides in an old large aquarium with a grille on the top to allow airflow, has the biggest wheel in existence, variety of toys and fresh food, and still her main ambition is to stand on top of her wheel so she can try and do a spiderman impression across the roof and give me heart failure during the 'dismount' phase!

In retrospect a rat would have been better. Maybe next time round.......at least hamsters do not have chinchilla style lifespans!

hamsters are crap. they're nippy (well our three all have been and it hurts!). they come out at night and do nothing much in the day. then they dont live long and its upsetting (cute that they are). had to have ours put down not long ago and i dont really want another one.

We've got one of those 3 storey duplex things (rotastax) which is great for the hamster but a complete pita to clean. A clean jam jar in the cage each day is a good idea, as they use it as their loo.
They are so noisy, ours started off upstairs but was waking entire house up.
My ds got one for Christmas and it has just snuffed it - at only 9 months old. I think it wore itself out on that bloody wheel. We bought a replacement yesterday, a male this time. Seems alarmingly whiffy and I've already threatened to take it back and swap it for a female!

You could always try freecycle to see if you can get a suitable rat cage for free?

When we had a new hamster when the dcs were young, we used to use a 'handling tube' - a jaffa cake tube would be good - to get it in & out of the cage
You put the tube in the cage & the hamster runs in, because it's nice & dark. Then you can lift it carefully out & sit the child down with the tube on its lap & let the hamster come out in its own time - you can tempt it with a bit of food if you like.

Ours always loved sunflower seeds & would sit & stuff their cheeks, which is always fun to watch.

I had one of those rotostack things and mine chewed it to bits, I ended up buying a huge normal cage for them, then when they died, got a rat. The rat was a far better pet. The hamsters were pure evil.

Must admit our hamster is quite nippy and it does hurt. I much prefer our chinchilla she is much more docile.

I don't like them or see the point of them (sorry hamster lovers). We're looking after one for SIL at the moment. It has bitten ds badly, and has escaped twice. It is largely nocturnal, so springs into life once children are in bed. And it smells and makes a horrible mess - kicking sawdust all over the place.

We have two hamsters. One is lovely - docile and loves being handled and the other just bites everyone and everything...

funnily enough they take after owners...!

Syrian Hamsters are the best for kids, once they are hand-tamed they stay that way even if they are not played with often. Just make sure you handle it lots when you first get it and it will be fine! My DSs are 7 and 4.5 BTW and they love playing with him. Syrians are also a bit bigger than Russians so less squashable!

Another rat fan here. They love to be cuddles. BOys are especially lazy & can be trained to lap/shoulder sit v quickly but are a bit whiffier than girls. Girls have lots of energy & like to play & explore. You have to get 2 though cos they're social animals and pine if they're alone