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What You Need To Know Before Considering A 'pet' Hamster
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Cover Their Habitat With A Light Cloth For The First Few Days Take Time To Bond With Your Hamster When You Buy A Hamster, Youre Supporting Cruel Animal Mills
There is no need to bathe, comb, or otherwise supplement your pet hamster's grooming practices. Ordering read more >> from Wedgewood Pharmacy is safe, and convenient. With a prescription number, easily refill prescriptions and enroll in the AutoRefill Program.
Hamsters will naturally urinate and defecate in a specific spot, and that area should be cleaned weekly. All the bedding should be replaced every six months or so, but a handful of used bedding should be retained to help the hamster feel secure. Patience, regular feeding, lots of out-of-habitat playtime, and soft talk will go a long way in helping you bond with your hamster. Make sure to always approach your pet slowly and talk to them in a conversational manner. They’ll learn to recognize your scent and voice and see you as a source of comfort. Your hammie will appreciate a varied diet as much as humans do.
Make sure any barred cage doesn’t have spaces larger than half an inch or a quarter-inch , as they could squeeze through. While hamsters need to be able to play and explore, the well-known hamster toys, the hamster ball and wheel, aren’t designed with the animal’s well-being in mind. Patience, regular feeding, lots of out-of-habitat playtime, and soft talk will go a long way in helping you bond with your hamster. Log in with your secure digital account and gain instant access to the industry’s largest formulary of compounded medications – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you support pet stores, you’re supporting places like this horrendous dealer, which supplies animals to hundreds of pet stores across the U.S.
We suggest setting up a small gated area with lots of toys and some treats so they can explore and say hi to their human family! Remember to always supervise your hamster when he or she is out of their habitat. As is the case with many small animals, placement is essential to a happy pet. Put your hamster’s home near the sounds of your family, but not right in the thick of things.
Cover Their Habitat With A Light Cloth For The First Few Days
While some animals need friends and companionship, hamsters do not. A Syrian hamster can bond with a human guardian, but they should not live with another hamster. Instead of adopting another hamster to keep yours company, be your hamster’s friend—spend time with them each day, cuddling and playing outside of their cage. Unlike a hamster wheel, which provides a hamster with a safe place to exercise when the correct size is used, a hamster ball is not recommended. Hamsters are easily frightened, because they don’t have the best eyesight, and they use their whiskers to navigate. A hamster separated from sensory information, as in one of these balls, is a disoriented animal—and what is often perceived by humans as enjoyment is more than likely a panic response.
Can you wash your hamster? The shorter answer is yes, you can bathe your hamster, but you probably shouldn't except in certain circumstances. ... Wet or dirty bedding should be removed from a hamster's cage every day and the bedding changed once a week for a cage containing one hamster, she says.

Cages sold at pet stores are woefully inadequate to meet a hamster’s unique needs. Large hamsters should have a minimum of 800 square inches of clear floor space, and dwarf hamsters should have at least 640. Because very few commercially available cages meet these recommendations, we recommend building your own hamster enclosure. If you’re unable to create your own, another option is a 75-gallon aquarium with a fitted mesh lid. Hamsters love to explore, so a larger space will make your hamster happier and healthier.
Take Time To Bond With Your Hamster
Hamsters will fight and inflict serious injuries to each other if housed in the same quarters, so each must have their own separate space. A female who gives birth may kill and eat their babies if disturbed, and allowing hamsters to breed is not recommended. Dwarf hamsters, on the other hand, may be able to live together if introduced properly. Every week or every other week, take soap and water and wipe down the entire habitat once it’s empty of bedding, toys, and other pieces. That extra step will keep your hamster's space smelling good.
Do hamster bites hurt? It's rare for a hamster to actually be aggressive, though, and they typically only bite when they get scared. Those tiny teeth may not do as much damage as those of other animals, but a bite will hurt and should be discouraged. Fortunately, you can gradually train your hamster to accept being handled and stop biting.

This will allow you to gain your hamster's trust over time, and allow you to pet and hold your hamster while avoiding being bitten. Hamsters are not aggressive pets but if they are scared or startled they may bite. A hamster might seem like the perfect pet for a small child, but this is not the case. They require careful, gentle handling, may bite, and don't generally feel safe in smaller hands. Children under 5 are particularly vulnerable to the effects of salmonella, a type of intestinal bacteria that hamsters can carry.
Hamsters have been known to carry a virus called Lymphocytic choriomeningitis. In healthy adults, this virus causes flu-like symptoms or no symptoms at all. However, it can be transmitted from a pregnant mother to their unborn child and can produce severe illness in people with compromised immune systems. Adrienne Kruzer is a veterinary technician with over 15 years of experience caring for domestic and exotic animals. Timothy hay, orchard grass, brome hay, botanical hay, and oat hay all make excellent bedding options for hamsters. Hamsters groom themselves, and often do it more than once a day.
To help prevent animal companions from harming one another, it’s imperative that hamsters have a safe, spacious, and sturdy enclosure to call home. Explore our small pet supplies for bedding, habitats, treats, chews, and much more. Explore our always-growing collection of small animal advice written by our pet experts.

It is best left to hamster breeders who are breeding for specific qualities and temperaments but accidents do happen. Many unsuspecting new hamster owners find themselves with a pregnant hamster after purchasing it from a pet store. Extra food and a quiet nesting area inside the cage need to be provided to a pregnant hamster.
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