things to buy for hamster

[kilmuir]

essentials and treats! have read up on hamster care, but wondered if any snippets of wisdom to make his life a happy one. thanks

-You need a decent size cage, much bigger than the crappy small shop bought ones. At least 80 wide 50 deep! The hamster heaven is very popular!

-Food - I use harry hamster! It goes down well and has everything they need

-A wheel - Again not a shitty small shop bought one (chances are the one that will come with your cage will be too small) . Hammy needs to be able to run flat with no bend in his back. I have a wooden Karlie wonderland which is a great size and compleatly silent apart from the patter of tiny paws :)

-Bedding - woodshavings not great. Megazorb fab - if you can find it. Carefresh is another of my faves - quite pricey but very very good! Shredded toilet roll as nesting material. NEVER cotton wooly type bedding, can cause all sorts of problems!

-Toys - Toilet roll tubes to chew and tunnel/Wood block to gnaw/Treat stick/ Bridges/ ladders/ egg boxes closed with treats inside.... use your imagination. You will find it fascinating to watch!

-Water bottle or bowl

-Sand bath (optional) - one of mine used it as a toilet, the other one uses it to dig and bathe in.

-A ball - Some people like them , some don't. I do! Hammy is safe. Its a good place to start taming. Start teaching him that ball means fun. Have ball on your lap let him use it as his safe place to run back too if he needs too whilst taming.

-Treats - Ones that have gone down with me is:Mini dog biscuits. Good for their teeth! Meal worms (live or dried), small pieces of cooked chicken/pasta, odd piece of cheese is loved dearly! A tiny piece of fresh fruit of veg every few days always goes down well, carrots, apple, cucumber.etc , but not too much or it could give them runny poo

A empty bath is great for taming. Sit in there with hammy, don't touch, just let him climb over you, run up your sleeves etc. Once he is used to this then work upt to hand holding.

A great way to get them some run time is to shut all your doors in a hallway and make a play area with treats to find, tunnels etc. Make sure there are no escape holes!

hamsterfanaticforum.co.uk is fab for advice and little tips on happy hammys. They have some great cages to look at to to give you ideas!

i may be back if I can think of anything else! Have fun with your new hammy! They are fab!

Wow thanks for that, I have been l;ooking at cages and was not very impressed with the small cages. will have a look at the one you mentioned.

We have the Leon on Zooplus-it's fab(tis reduced at the mo).Loads of room to be creative.We also have the Karlie-fantastic.The burrow box from Pets at home is great too and the wooden see saw that came free with our cage.

Our hamster loves a millet strand and erm his cuddly broccoli toy(we bought it as we were worried he'd be lonely).

are 2 same sex hamsters ok together?
know as a child we only had one at a time

If you have a Syrian then they need to be kept alone. they will fight to death otherwise.

Dwarfs are slightly different, but still need to be watched and their care is slightly different (mainly food- dwarfs are prone to diabetes) , and make sure that they are the same sex! do be prepared that if they fall oput the you will need to separate them into two cages!

Syrians are much better imo. Easier to handle!

Hi. We've got this cage and I wouldn't buy smaller. You do need to buy accessories separately rather than use the ones that come with it though as they are a bit rubbish.
We started with an 8 inch silent spinner wheel, but then when our hamster got a bit bigger we got him the 11 inch sized Wodent wheel Their back needs to be straight when they are running on the wheel, so it needs to be large enough. We use these hamster bottles as the one that came with the cage dripped constantly so was useless. I use a shallow, stoneware dish to put hamster bathing sand in. Just found out you can use children's play sand for that, which is cheaper. I no longer use a hamster potty, he just poos in the corner which is diagonally opposite to where he eats and sleeps. He sleeps in this house. Eats from this bowl. I use Megazorb bedding and ripped up loo roll for nesting material. (Tesco Value brand.)

The wire clip that comes with the bottle i mentioned above is not much good, so i use a plastic clip that came with another bottle.

We've got this cage. Our hamster loves it because it is over a metre long, and he can also climb all over the bars.

He's got a super silent wheel which we bought from Amazon, because of the next day delivery and his old squeaky wheel was driving us mad!

I buy a mixture of hamster food and parrot food for mine and mix it up in a big Tupperware container. It does work out more expensive, but he really likes the nuts and seeds. I give him a little treat every day because when we had him first, everytime we put him back after handling him he got a treat, so now he begs. He likes grapes, cucumber, cheese, crusty bread, toast, cracker, custard creams, monkey nuts, pastry, bits of apple, carrot and celery.

Ours has a hamster toilet and he wees in there, he poos in one corner of his cage and chucks them out on to the hall floor! he has a little climbing frame and see saw that we rotate when we clean him out. I wanted to buy him an advent calendar in Pets at Home on Saturday bit DH wouldn't let me!

Wow MsElle that cage looks brilliant! I didn't see that one when i was shopping for hamster cages a year ago. I thought the Savic Hamster Heaven/Sky were the biggest one at the time, but i might have gone for that one if I'd seen it

I wanted to buy ours a nibble Christmas tree but dp said he'd leave me.

Unbeknown to him I have made him a stocking.

He's dtwin1's hamster and he's been begging for one of the Pets at Home stockings but I said it was too trashy(had choc drops in) for our Nibbles so I got him an empty Hobbycraft one and have picked up a few cheap bits and bobs that are more wholesome.

Soooooo need to get out more!!!!

Dd is having gerbils just waiting for the cage.Bit worried they'll eat each other!