Hayley’s Guide: Getting a HAMSTER

Even though hamsters are little tiny things, they take A LOT of work. Before you get a hamster you should always be prepared. Meaning, you should already have a cage set up, some bedding in the cage, food in a little food bowl, refill the water about once a day, and a place where they can go do their bisiness.

• Inside the Cage

You should have a cage already set up for your hamster. Make sure it’s a good cage, you never want your hamster to be living in a shoe box! You put about 1 inch of bedding covering the whole floor. You NEED to have a wheel in the cage. Also, you should have a little food bowl, filled with food. Sometime the food bowl comes with the cage. Also there’s a built in water container. You should always keep an eye on that whole where you put the water bottle into. Hamster can easily escape when you take it out to refill it. Make sure there’s a little spot for the hamster to climb up in. Hamster will pick one spot in their cage to go to the restroom. And that is all the stuff you need for the cage.

• Food

Your hamster needs to be fed all the right foods. Try to not give it too much treats. I give my hamster 1 treat a day. You should buy hamster food at your local pet store. It is filled with seeds, and other nutritional foods for hammy’s. They also like to get chew toys. So buy something really chew to help their teeth get stronger. It is VERY important that you feed your pet some dry vegitables. Hamsters usually LOVE to eat broccali. Also baby carrots, but they don’t like those nearly as much as broccali! If you refill their food bowl about once a day they should be fine!

• Water

The only thing you have to do is refill the water bottle once a day with FRESH water. NO salt water, or dirty, or already in mouth water. FRESH water.

• Excersize

Excersize is a very important thing. With out it, they could die. A normal hamster 3 miles a night. A pregnant hamster runs 6 miles a night!!! Running is very important. You either have a built in wheel like me cage, or buy one at your local pet store. YOU NEED TO BUY A WHEEL. Sometimes the wheel gets skweeky and makes a lot of noise and it’s hard to sleep at night. So what I do, is rub a LITTLE bit of olive oil or vingar on on the sides and it is no longer making noise!

• Diet

You can’t feed your hamster too much. You don’t want to have a fat hamster. If it gets to fat, it could die or get stuck in the tubes. It’s also a good idea to have tubes in the cage because it’s fun and let ur hamster get stronger!

• Going to the restroom

You hamster will pick only one spot in it’s cage to go to the restroom. BUT, you need to buy some sorta white little balls for it. It’s like Hamster litter. Your hamster will smell it, and know that it’s uposed to go here. When a hamster is younge, it may eat it’s droppings. Don’t be freaked out about this, it’s what they do. They might do it all around their cage when they are little, but when they are bigger they want to keep themselves and their environment clean. Cat litter also works.

• Deseises  (idk how to spell it)

A major deseise it “Wet Tail”!!!! My old hamster ChiChi died of Wet Tail. Wet Tail is when your hamster gets diarehia. We all know what diarehia is. And all the water that is in the hamster’s body comes out in it’s droppings. When all the water comes out, it is week. So week that it cannot come down, or over to it’s water bottle. Then a long time with out water, it could die. To prevent this, take it’s water bottle, or buy a seperate water bottle and take it to where it is. Let it drink and do that every few minutes.

• Cleaning

You have to clean their cages once a week. It will smell if you don’t. I do it with rubber gloves because I don’t want to touch anything. Also, clean out the potty  place too! I recomend you use gloves!   They will also help out with the cleaning. But not the cage….THEMSELVES. Yes, they clean themselves so don’t like give them a bath or anything! They’ll just lick all over them, and itch themselves and everything! They are very tiny, but have a BIG brain.

NOTES:

1. NEVER sqeeze them
2. If you have a dwarf hamster, you may want to buy a lock for the cage door because they are very sneeky getting out.
3. If your hamster does get out, make sure to close all the doors in your house. Some hamsters can make themselves flat and sqeeze under doors but usually thet won’t.
4. NEVER place the cage in dirrect sun light.
5. Hamster’s can only see about one inch in front of them so don’t attack them.
6. They will bite, you have to try to pick up your hamster and talk to it for it to love you so it won’t bite.
7. Try to buy a transportation ball! Put them in it and it is so funny to see them run around in it! NEVER roll them down stairs when they’re in it.

 

Need a name?

Need a name for your hamster? Ask here! I’m great with names!

 

I hope you learned a little something here!

Thanks,

Hayley☺♥♫