Hamsters

This page lists the resources every hamster owner needs to keep his/her hamster healthy and safe. Hamster owners, both newbies and experts, can benefit from this guide. Before you start using this guide, please do read the disclaimer at the bottom of this page.

About Hamsters

What is a hamster?
Different Types of Hamsters [Both pet and wild hamsters – In short]
Only pet hamsters – In detail:
1. Syrian hamsters
2. Chinese hamsters
3. Campbell hamsters
4. Winter White hamsters
5. Roborovski hamsters

Hamster’s Characteristics

Are hamsters nocturnal, diurnal or crepuscular?
Are Hamsters blind? The truth about a hamster’s eyesight
Are hamsters sensitive to sound? How to protect your hamster from loud sounds?
How good is a hamster’s sense of smell? How can you protect it?
Male and female hamster differences
A hamster burrowing guide
Why do hamsters eat their poop?
Why do hamsters eat their babies?

Hamster’s Health

13 Reasons why your hamster stinks and what to do about it?
Pregnant hamsters care guide
Bumblefoot in hamsters
Pyometra in hamsters
Tumors in hamsters
Hamster eye infection and other hamster eye problems
Diarrhea in hamsters
Wet Tail in hamsters
Can hamsters get fleas?

Food for hamsters

What can hamsters eat?
What can hamsters not eat?

Miscellaneous

How to tame a hamster?

Our Hamster’s Journal

I have wanted to have a pet since I was nine years old. But my family couldn’t afford a pet (I lived in India, where dogs, cats, and parrots were kept as pets in the 1990s but not hamsters or rats), and I was also always sick. So, my father was afraid that I would get asthma. So, he wouldn’t buy me a pet.

In 2010, when I was 22, I got a job and started living alone. I could have got a pet back then. However, the thought of having a pet scared me because I thought I was neither financially well-off for keeping a dog (Back then, I didn’t even know about hamsters. Moreover, rodents like rats freaked me out – not just me, but most people because rats were considered pests in our society), nor would I be responsible enough to be a dog owner. Having a pet as a child is different; If you don’t take care of your pet properly, your parents will always take care of it (I know now that it is a wrong mentality). But having a pet as a grown-up is completely different; You are entirely responsible for a pet, and I wasn’t sure if I could take care of another life.

Fast forward to 2021. I am married, and I live in Germany. My desire to own a pet still hadn’t gone away. But the huge responsibility still scared me. So, I decided to start a blog on pets that are not too costly, too time-consuming, or demand too much responsibility. Maybe, it will help people like me. ‘Hamsters’ suited my search criteria. So, I started writing articles on how to keep a hamster as a pet.

It is 2023 now. After having written more than 50 articles about hamsters, I really wanted to buy one. I was torn between buying and adopting a hamster. Adopting a hamster is good for animals because I wouldn’t be supporting the cruel pet trade. However, I haven’t had a pet yet. So, I wasn’t sure if adopting a hamster would be the right choice because, in my opinion, it requires a certain amount of experience to care for an animal that has already lost its home more than once. So, I decided to buy a hamster.

I started visiting pet stores and drooling at Syrian hamsters.

At this point, I really, really, really wanted a hamster as a pet. But I still wasn’t ready for the responsibility that came along with it. Moreover, since I am a foreigner living in Germany and I want to visit India for a month every year, I wasn’t sure where to leave my hamster. But I figured if I just bought a cage, that would, at some point, motivate me to buy a hamster.

13.05.2023

I went to a nearby pet store called Kölle Zoo to buy a hamster cage. My wife came along with me.

I planned to keep the hamster cage in the living room. Our living room was big, and the room heater took a pretty long time to heat the entire room in the winter. A normal wire cage would become cold sooner because air can flow through it from all sides. Then the cage would get too cold for the hamster, which needs a room temperature of 18°C to 24°C. So, I decided to buy a glass tank (aquarium) since glass is a good insulator that would keep the hamster warm even if it is comparatively colder outside.

But a glass tank with an opening from the top would make it too difficult to tame the hamster because I would have to approach the hamster from above, which could easily scare the little guy. So, I opted for a glass tank with an opening on one side (on the front, not the top).

After I bought the cage, my wife told me, “If you buy only the cage today and not the hamster, you will not stop wanting to own a hamster. So, we are buying a hamster now”. Then she chose a hamster, bought it, and brought it home.

The pet store put the hamster in a small plastic box and put some of the bedding from his current cage in it. We came home, assembled the cage, put the bedding inside it, and placed two hideouts, a sand bath, and a hamster wheel inside it. Then, we took some of the bedding in the box and put it inside the cage. This step is vital so that the hamster’s new cage smells like his old cage. If not, he can get too stressed. Hamsters, especially Syrians, are prone to Wet Tail which can also be caused due to stress. Since hamsters that contract Wet Tail can die within two days, the first few days after you bring your hamster home are extremely crucial.

After sprinkling some bedding from the old cage in the new cage, I put the box inside the cage and tilted it. The little guy, who was pretty bored from being in a little box for almost 90 minutes, immediately started running around and exploring his new cage. He ran in the wheel for a few minutes. Then he started searching for a place to hide.

I had placed a coconut shell as one of the hideouts. Once he found out where it was, he ran into it.

Meanwhile, I put the food that the pet store owner had recommended into a small food bowl, poured water into two bowls, and placed them all inside the cage. Then I turned the lights off to let the hamster settle.

14.05.2023

My wife named our hamster (a male) ‘Hum.’ Hum in Sanskrit (one of the oldest languages in the world) means ‘I am That.’ It can be understood as ‘I am (a part of) the universe or ultimate being.’

16.05.2023

Today, we decided to start taming our hamster slowly.

Hum is completely nocturnal. He sleeps the entire day. He wakes up at around 21:00 and needs an hour to become completely active. Around 22:00, he starts running around and exploring things in his cage. He keeps running in the hamster wheel non-stop. Around 04:30, when I wake up, he starts getting tired and getting ready to sleep.

So, as a first step, when he woke up, I kept the food bowl just outside his nesting area. But instead of just leaving the food bowl there, I kept my hand on the food bowl and waited for him. He came outside and started eating the food from the food bowl. He didn’t mind my hand being there.

18.05.2023

For the past two days, I have been leaving my hand on the food bowl while he eats. Today, I went one step further and started stroking his back slightly as he ate. He didn’t mind that either.

20.05.2023

We went to a nearby Organic shop and bought a carrot and an apple for Hum. I cut a very tiny piece of apple and gave it to Hum. Hum came and smelled the apple in my hand but did not take it. So, I gave him a small piece of carrot. He eagerly took the carrot from my hand and ate it. This was a good sign that the hamster was ready to bond. The next step would be to make him climb my hand and take the carrot. But I will wait a few days before trying that.

22.05.2023

We had purchased two hideouts for our hamster. One is a coconut shell that is almost spherical with only one opening on the side, and the other is a small house-like hideout with no bottom. I had placed the coconut shell on the bedding and the house-like hideout on a raised wooden platform. But our hamster kept using only the coconut shell. He peed (I suspect so because I couldn’t find anywhere that was wet or smelly) and pooped in it. He did not use the other hideout.

So, I removed the second hideout from the raised wooden platform and kept it on the bedding so that Hum could dig beneath it. Slowly, Hum started using the second hideout as well. He would enter it at times. But he would never sleep in it.

24.05.2023

Hum switched from sleeping in the coconut shell to sleeping in the second hideout.

27.05.2023

Something weird happened today. Hum stored all the food we gave him in his cheeks and did not eat it or store it in his hideout. He started running in his wheel with all the food in his cheeks. It was very unusual. He had never done this before. He also tried to climb the bars of the cage when I got near the cage.

I did not know what was wrong. I tried everything, but nothing worked. I gave some time, around an hour or so, but still nothing changed. He was still carrying all the food in his mouth.

Finally, I took the coconut shell hideout out of the cage and smelled it. There was a bad stench coming out of it, probably Hum’s pee. So, I emptied its contents into the dustbin and put some bedding into it, and kept it back in the cage. I left the room for ten minutes and came back. I saw that Hum was not carrying food in his mouth anymore.

So, it was most probably the smell of his pee that disturbed him that much. But the problem is, I am still not able to find out where he pees. I couldn’t even find out if he was peeing in one location or changing it all the time.

01.06.2023

I built a hamster play house for Hum using cardboard boxes from IKEA and Amazon packaging. It took me almost 6 hours to build it. It had an entry area where Hum could enter the play house from his cage, then stairs for him to climb down the play house, and three separate areas for him to play. The first area had a small two-floor house. I planned to fill the second area with some sand and the third area with some bedding for him to burrow. However, it wasn’t easy to get Hum inside the play house.

Whatever I did, he wouldn’t climb the playhouse. So, I tried sprinkling some broccoli (which he happens to like a lot) throughout the path leading to the playhouse and also inside the playhouse to bribe him to enter the playhouse. Finally, my idea (It was actually my wife’s idea, to be fair) worked. However, he was scared to climb down the stairs. But he would also not get into the tunnel that connected the playhouse and the cage. So, he ended up running between the stairs and the tunnel and tried to jump out of the playhouse. My wife (both first-time pet owners) and I were really scared and didn’t know what to do. So, since he wouldn’t climb down the stairs, we put a lot of broccoli inside the tunnel to bribe him to enter the tunnel and exit the playhouse. Finally, he entered the tunnel and exited the playhouse. He was so relieved to be in the safety of his own home finally. Frankly, so were we.

In the video below, I show you how I built the hamster play house without spending any money.

03.06.2023

I bought our hamster from a pet shop called Kölle Zoo in a city nearby. There is a shop that sells put food and shelter supplies that is just 2 Km from our house. So, I decided to buy the bedding here, since it is so convenient. I bought absorbent wood bedding for the bottom layer, hay for the middle layer, and white cotton bedding for the top layer. The middle layer should be able to hold together if the hamster burrows through it. So, the middle layer needs to be at least 6 inches deep, while the bottom layer has to be 2 inches, and the top layer can be 1 – 2 inches deep. Since hay was considerably cheap, I bought it.

Hamster looking out of a coconut shell — Hum looking out of the coconut shell

05.06.2023

Instead of keeping all the hamster food in the food bowl, I started sprinkling the food across the cage. I found that Hum liked foraging for food. So, I decided to continue doing it.

11.06.2023

Our hamster started sneezing and scratching himself a lot, and his eyes became red occasionally. So, my wife and I got scared. We didn’t know what caused it. After monitoring him carefully, we thought it might be because of the bedding (hay and/or cotton). So, we decided to change the bedding.

17.06.2023

I bought Linum Linen litter for our hamster since the package said it was 99.99% dust-free. I used it as the middle layer of bedding. I bought the Multifit cotton bedding for rodents to use as the topmost bedding layer.

19.06.2023

I work as an automation engineer, programming and installing software to automate machines. My wife works in a kindergarten and spends more than 3 hours every day commuting. So, we both are pretty tired by the time we reach home. We spend only very little time with our hamster, maybe 15 minutes every day. So, tonight my wife told me that I should spend more time with our hamster if I expected to tame him.

I have been trying to tame him for a very long time now. He takes food from my hands, but he wouldn’t climb on my hands. So, I decided to wake up early tomorrow and play with him a little bit.

20.06.2023

I woke up at 04:30 am today and went to my hamster’s cage. I opened the doors of the aquarium and put my hand inside to play with my hamster. Our hamster Hum was running on the wheel. When he saw my hand, he stopped running, just looked at my hand for a moment, and then, suddenly, he jumped and bit my forefinger with all his might.

I pulled my hand out, but it was too late. My finger was already bleeding. The cut wasn’t wide enough, but it was pretty deep. I went to a hospital. Since I had a Tetanus injection just two years back (In Germany, Tetanus shots are valid for ten years), the doctor told me not to worry. But the pain was there. Every time I touched my finger, I felt a sharp pain, probably in my bone.

I don’t know why he bit me. He was definitely not scared of me. Maybe, he got angry for disturbing him while he was running on the wheel. But I think he bit my finger because he thought my finger was a giant piece of his favorite food.

The aquarium made taming my hamster too difficult. So, I decided to build a second cage for Hum.

24.06.2023

I bought a plastic box to serve as the second cage for our hamster. I connected it to the aquarium through a plastic tube and a temporary cardboard cover to close the opening in the aquarium. But Hum was too suspicious and wouldn’t climb the tube. So, I tied a piece of watermelon to a thread and put it into the tube from the second cage and through the tube into the aquarium.
After smelling one of his favorite food items, Hum started coming out. I started to pull the thread slowly. He followed the thread into the plastic tube and finally reached the second cage. But he wouldn’t get into the second cage. So, I kept my hand in the second cage and kept a piece of watermelon on my hand (not the one tied to a thread – I threw it away – Instead, I kept a new piece of watermelon on my hand). Slowly, Hum climbed down and took the watermelon hastily from my hand and put it inside his mouth. He then looked around the surroundings and started to look around.

Whenever my wife or I was near the aquarium, he used to climb the bars of the cage. He was always curious to find out what lay beyond the iron bars. Today, he got to find out. So, he explored the new world. But he didn’t trust it much. So, he did not eat the piece of watermelon stored in his cheek pouches. Instead, he explored the surroundings for a minute or so, then climbed on the plastic pipe and went back to his nest in the aquarium. Then he did not come out for some time.

Since I had used cardboard to cover the entrance of the aquarium and I knew Hum could chew the cardboard and get out, I couldn’t leave the set-up for a long time. So, I removed the plastic tube from the aquarium and closed the door. But soon, I will build a permanent set-up to link the aquarium and the second cage.

25.06.2023

I built a permanent set-up to link the aquarium and the second cage. I put the new bedding in the second cage.

With the new bedding and a new cage, our hamster’s sneezing and scratching reduced for a few days, but it reappeared again.

26.06.2023

Due to the excruciating heat this summer, temperatures started rising too much. I bought a Temperature and Moisture monitor and kept it near the cage to monitor the temperature and moisture. The temperature went up to 27°C today. So, I went to the pet shop and asked the hamster expert how to keep the hamster cage cool in summer. She pointed me to a cooling plate.

After opening the cover and touching the cooling plate, I found that it wasn’t that cold after all. I asked the expert if this plate would even help cool the cage since it wasn’t that cold. She told me that since hamsters are tiny creatures, something that feels cold to us might push them into shock and eventually kill them. So, this cooling plate is ideal since it isn’t too cold, but for a hamster, it was cold enough to help regulate his body temperature when it gets too hot outside.

So I bought it and kept it in the new cage.

02.07.2023

After observing our hamster, I started suspecting that he starts sneezing when he forages for food. Maybe when he starts smelling the bedding when he forages for food, it irritates him, and so he starts sneezing and scratching himself. So, I started keeping his food on the cooling plate and on the wooden steps in the aquarium.

10.07.2023

The sneezing and scratching reduced tremendously and remained so. So, I continued keeping the food on the cooling plate and on the wooden steps.

11.07.2023

Since my hamster bit me, I took a step backward in the taming process. I stopped giving him food from my hand. For a few days, I just kept food in the food bowl. Then, I started offering food from my hand. The new cage made it easier to interact with our hamster because it did not have a ceiling. So, today I started leading my hamster to my left hand using the food in my right hand as bait. But our hamster did not feel confident enough to climb onto my hand.

14.07.2023

Today, Hum climbed onto my left hand but took the treat from my right hand and ran away to his nest immediately to eat it.

15.07.2023

Today Hum took the food from my right hand but stayed on my left hand a little bit longer to eat the food.

02.08.2023

Finally, Hum found a place to pee. He started peeing in the sand bath. Every day, I started finding wet spots of sand in the sand bath. So, my wife and I bought a small bowl, filled it with sand, and kept it at the place where the sand bath was previously. We moved the sand bath to another place.

However, I am not sure why Hum chose to pee in the sandbath, which was directly opposite his nest, even though there was a coconut shell in the other cage. It would be the farthest location from his nest. Yet he did not use it. I do not know why. I think it was because he liked sand and felt comfortable in it and also because sand absorbed the odor from his pee.

05.08.2023

Today I decided to lift Hum while feeding him from my hand.

06.08.2023

Today my hamster did something weird. He started digging the bedding in the second cage (where his nest was present). He tried to push the bedding into his cage. However, once the bedding was inside the cage, he tried going inside the cage, but it didn’t work because, obviously, his cage was full of the bedding he had pushed inside, so only half his body could fit inside. Then he came out and tried to shove the bedding away from his cage and then tried pushing the bedding inside the cage once again.

I did not understand why he was doing this. I was baffled. I observed him for a few minutes. Then it dawned on me. I had changed the bedding in the second cage and cleaned his nest only the day before. So, his nest wasn’t probably as cozy as it used to be a day earlier.

So, I brought some cotton – white soft cotton bedding for hamsters – and put it in front of his cage. I also emptied the bedding in his nest (not under his nest) so that he could enter the nest. As soon as Hum saw the cotton, he came out, put as much cotton as he could in his cheek pouches, and went inside the cage to empty it. Then he came out and tried to pull the remaining cotton too inside the cage. But then the cage was too full of cotton, and he couldn’t enter the cage. So, I removed some of the bedding around the nest so that the bedding inside the nest could move down and make way for Hum to get in. Then, Hum went inside the cage and slept.

Disclaimer

Even though I have done diligent research in writing each of these blog posts, they cannot replace a veterinary doctor’s experience. Moreover, the advice given in each of these blog posts is only general advice meant to educate you. They may not be applicable to each individual hamster. So, the content in these blog posts should not be taken as professional advice. Please consult a vet before taking any decisions that might affect the health of your hamster.

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