New hamster help- food and drink?

[puttyandslime]

Hi all,

We've just got our first hamster on Wednesday and want to get things right.

Should I empty and fill his water bottle up daily? He's barely drinking at the moment.

Should I fill his food bowl up when it's completely empty, or top it up every day?

Aside from the hamster food we bought, can you give veggies extra?

Don't want to over or under feed him!

Thanks for all help.

We used to give him I think 2 tsp a day (using a measuring spoon). He'd eat it or hoard it in his bed. Change the water every day, yes, they don't always seem to drink much, but it's better for it to be nice and fresh. Ours used to like little bits of carrot and cucumber as a treat, and the hamster chocolate drops you can buy.

You might be able to toilet train him — put a jam jar in the corner of the cage where he goes to the loo, and put some of the wee-d on sawdust in it. Ours would go in the jam jar, and we could just change that every day for one with dry sawdust. It meant the cage never got too smelly between "full" cleans.

I agree - as well as the dry hamster food, give him a little fresh food each day - carrot, apple, dandelion leaves, cucumber, salad leaves, non-citrus fruits. Ours have always liked little treats like pine kernels, raisins, mealworms, tiny bit of cheese.

You can make a loo area with sand where he'll do his business, and this saves cleaning the whole cage too often. Hamsters like to dig, so make the sawdust quite deep in the cage - ours have always liked a lot of hay in the cage, too.

Wishing you lots of fun with your furry friend!