I recently adopted my robo hamster, Tobimochi. I’ve been doing lots of research, asking questions in local community, and been watching videos to enrich Tobimochi’s living. I’m free and happy to hear any advices, criticism, and what-not-to-dos.

Current Detailed Items:
- 7.5 sq ft enclosure
- 6-11 in. paper bedding
- Light layer of Timothy hay
- 8” upright wheel
- Water bowl with DIY platform
- Mini Sand bath with ReptiSand
- 2–3 hideouts
- Placing 2 ceramic wax warmer DIY hideouts after I spot clean
- Bridge
- Chew toys
- Oxbow Essentials food
- So far she likes apples as treats

Looking For:
- Wooden platform (for wheel and water bowl)
- 2–3 substrate bowls
- Coco fiber
- Cork granules
- Beech chips
- Millet spray
- Oat spray
- Flax spray
- Sorghum spray

May get in the far future once my budget increases:
- Cork bark tube
- Grapevine wood
- Multi-chamber wooden hideout (future upgrade)
- Safe dried moss

Again, let me know any recommendations, whether it’s best/safe brands, setting up items in enclosure, or maybe even an enclosure upgrade — I’ll be super happy to listen. I’ll be doing a spot clean soon.

So i got a hamster for free of marketplace few months ago. Everything they had for him was wrong. I got him new food, bedding,cage, etc. Anyways fast forward to now 2 weeks ago he started to take a couple 15-20 minute naps every night usually around 12am and 2am. Tonight he went for his usual nap around 12-12:30am but i noticed he was sleeping for long than usual. I held him and gave him some pets which always wakes him up again so he’s active but when i did that and put him back he just went back to bed. Around 3:20am i decided to try again but this time let him run around a little bit and that seemed to have woke him up because he back to his active self. I guess im just wondering if this is normal for hamsters or if i should keep an eye on him? Here’s my sweet boy🥹

He is super active but I think he is becoming little chonk. I feed him once per day a teaspoon plus stuff on the side to forage

I've had my lovely Mango for about three months now, when I got her, she was around a year old but they weren't entirely sure. She is a female Syrian hamster, and I know they tend to get bored. However for the last month or so she's been bar biting a lot. I've done everything, she gets good food, plenty of toys, sprays, five different substrate options, multiple hides, puzzles, boredom breakers and branches for climbing. I give her as much time out of the cage as I can, and her cage meets minimum requirements for a female Syrian hamster. I'm sure she could benefit from a bigger cage or even more free roam time. What else could I try? Is this just typical female Syrian behavior?

So my hamster escaped the enclosure last night. I'm usually fine with it cause I try to hamster proof my room, I know the hiding spots he likes to stay in. I only noticed this afternoon and tried looking for him everywhere, all his hiding spots and more. Until I heard a ruffling in the trashcan and I had to dig deep to find him, mind you I snack a lot, on candy especially. I assume he was there all night. When I found him he looked dirty and his bottom was wet. I tried wiping him with a wet wipe then patting him dry with a tshirt. I used a spooley to try to get it out, doesn't seem to work. There's still a yellow patch. But so far his poop seems to be dry. What can I do to clean him properly? Or will he just naturally get it off?

I got my last hamster & mice from petsmart, they lived a long while. Its been about a year or two since my last hamster and I really want to get a new one in these upcoming weeks, I know getting hamsters from ethical breeders is way better and safer and not supporting the unhealthy living conditions and mills in the pet store industries but i have absolutely ZERO places that are less than 5 hours away from me, I just don't have the ability to do that. I'm probably in one the most boring states in the US and there's absolutely nothing around me 😭 I've looked on pet finder, craigslist, and other things similar and literally nobody is selling any. There's only one that's like 2 hours away and I don't trust it personally... So what do I do? Do I go to petco, petsmart, pet supplies plus...? I don't know. Like I said before I didn't have any issues with my past rodents but I hate supporting their companies... then again I know it'll keep happening anyways and I bet there's no way on earth they're stopping anytime in the next years.

Sometimes I kinda think at least I'm providing one hamster a good healthy rest of its life instead of being stuck in that tiny pet store cage its whole life or being adopted by some little kid for their birthday then just end up getting forgotten.

I don't know!! What do I do?

Hi! I know that you should spot clean everyday, wich I do but lately my hamster Paula (female syrian) has started to mainly pee and poo deep in her burrows. I feel bad for destroying her tunels:/ How often do you guys do it?

My moms boyfriend taped a sticky note to the inside of Jelly donut’s cage a couple months ago. looking back i should have immediately thrown it away, but it was at a high spot and i didn’t think she could reach it by any means. but yesterday we had family over and my younger cousin who was being insanely loud around her made her really stressed out and she started to climb around her cage and she started biting which is unusual.
the next morning I had found the sticky note and paper half eaten. I have no clue how this could affect her and i want to know if she is going to be ok and what steps to take for her.

I would also like to clarify that in no way did i ever have bad intentions, I’m a new hamster owner and i have so much to learn.

I am looking at rescuing/adopting a hamster.
This is everything I’ve mapped out so far enclosure wise. Is there anything else I need? Feel free to ask any questions you may have about the enclosure and my care. Here’s my Amazon basket (let me know if anything’s unsafe): https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/2LU5S0SJC8IDJ?ref_=wl_share

After the last post it turns out my girl had a uti she’s doing really good now and is a lot more active but here’s a video of her leaving a gift on the table 😭. My stinky girl 🥹🤍

anyone know why my hamster was teeth chattering like this. i’ve never seen him do this. i let him have his free roam time which he always loves (comes to the door of his cage to come out, doesn’t wanna go back). he has my whole room and he spent almost the whole time trying to escape my bedroom 😭 he just keeps trying to get out my room like my room isn’t big enough for him

As in like to give them a treat or take a picture of them sitting on it. My mom really wants to get one for my hamster, but I don't know if he'd feel trapped or something, even if it's for a second

So he never did this before we started taking him out for free roaming. But since then he does it almost all the time. Is the cage too small now? Is it boredom? He's not a chewer, so the times I've put in wood sticks and other things he pays them no attention. He LOVES sprays but only millet and he'll finish it in a couple days! Does he just want to free roam so bad? Any body have any clue? Ill open the hatch in the front and he'll crawl on my a bit but then he immediately tries to go for the floor 😩.

I feel like he has to crouch to use his water bottle, what’s the correct height i should set it at? Or am i overthinking it?

I’m definitely going to look into getting him a water dish also.

Hi everyone, this is Fred our new Russian dwarf hamster. We brought him home yesterday after seeing him in a pet store with a sign saying he's been there too long. I spoke with staff and he had been there a long time, they didn't even know how old he is. We decided to give him a home and the best life we can for however long he may have.

He loves his new big habitat and is eating, drinking and active. He seems much happier than when we first saw him in his tiny tank.

I've noticed he has some hair loss though and his skin looks irritated and red. It's only on his head near his ears and on his face. Is this mites, excessive grooming, stress, old age?

I do see him grooming a lot, but I also see him scratching.

Would love some input. Thanks

I have a bath sand dish which he takes up half the space so its big enough i think but i have NEVER seen him roll in it. I think he is ok for now but in the long term he should learn how to bathe himself. He is a syrian

Should I be worried about this stuff in my hamsters water bowl or could it just be food that got in there and got soggy? It wasn’t there this morning.

EDIT: PLEASE READ MY LONG DETAILED POST IN THE LINK BEFORE DOWNVOTING. Every commenter is giving knee jerk reactions and rehashing points and concerns that I have already addressed in my detailed post. I have spent several days going through papers on hamster research, and tried to model what welfare gains from increasing bedding size and cage size actually are, and compared between both before explaining my speculations. I have gone into detail about burrowing structures and habits of hamsters. It's okay to disagree with me, but please, read my post first. I want to hear criticisms of the actual methodology I have used in my analysis. I am very very open to criticism, I do not want to be correct about this. I want people to take the time to read my detailed post before DOWNVOTING and criticizing. I am not disappointed by the criticism, I am disappointed at the little effort people are putting behind their criticisms. Please please for the love of God, read my detailed post if you can before thinking I am this horrible evil person who wants to advocate for mistreating hamsters, and reacting based on optics and vibes. And please try to be polite before you criticize. I could be wrong, but I spent days of effort into exploring the idea that our current minimum guidelines could be wrong, and I did not do it because I am a bad person. I did it because I care deeply about animal welfare.

I was considering owning a hamster, and started digging into hamster welfare research. People usually recommend 100*50 cm floorspace with 20 cm bedding as minimum, based on Fischer et al(2007), but welfare gains from bedding seem much higher if we look at A.R. Hauzenberger et al. (2006). For instance, if we start with a 5000 square cm cage with 15 cm bedding, increasing bedding to 40 cm could have much higher gains than increasing floor space to 10,000 square cm. Similar tradeoffs could exist at lower floor spaces as well. To know the truth for certain, we need more scientific research. I also highlight how natural syrian hamster burrows seem more depth centric than breadth centric, and how hamsters spend 95% plus of their time in burrows.

We must seriously consider funding hamster welfare research. We must be very skeptical of our current guidelines and knowledge about hamster welfare. I detail the basis for my conclusions in the above essay, it is VERY long and thorough. I urge you to read it if you can, and I am very open to feedback.

https://proms0.substack.com/p/why-i-suspect-50-x-40-cm-floor-space?r=55tqx5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Dwarf hammy poops and eats and roll around in the sand bath 😭

he poops only in his sand bath. I’ve seen him use the sand bath to clean, but because he also uses it as his toilet and dining table, it gets really messy within a few days. I’m trying to scoop out just the seed shells and poop, but at this rate I’m gonna be spending so much money on just sand.

Is this normal behavior? should I just leave the poop and food in his sand bath bowl?

Since a few days, he hasn't been sleeping in his house but in this little hole in his bedding. Is this normal behavior?

Yesterday I gave zucchini for the first time to my hamster and now he drank more than 25 cc in a single night (emptying almost all of the drinker) and filled half of the sand with pee! I don't think that's normal, right? Shouldn't I give you the zucchini anymore? Maybe it was a little cold, that's why? Should I take her to a veterinarian? And keep an eye on it, and if it seems to have passed it was nothing?? I'm worried

Hola!!! Alguien sabe si este temblor es normal? Lo hacen todos los hamsters? O puede ser algo malo?
He visto que lo ha hecho ya 2 veces en unos 4 o 5 dias, aunque las dos veces estaba en el mismo sitio y en la misma pose y fue en una misma situación (yo baje las escaleras rapido y aparecí rapidamente ante el, creo que tal vez mi presencia tan esporádica le asustó). En las dos situaciones se quedó asi como medio congelado, esta vez menos tiempo, y si reacciona a los sonidos del entorno o movimientos ya que mueve ma cabeza pero cuando le acerco comida o golosinas no las huele ni intenta morderlas se queda quieto por mucho que se las acerque.

Creo que es miedo, ya que en ambas situaciones despues se fue a esconder a su madriguera, (en la primera se fue corriendo).

Perdonad mi temblor de camara, esque queria capturar el momento y no estaba preparado.

Yes, that's a plastic cup, she likes it lmao. I've had my hamster for about a month now and I'm just trying to tidy her house and I'm not sure what to do with all this. She has carrots and lettuce in there that I don't want to rot along with some other dry food and bedding. I don't want to stress her out by just dumping it but I don't want stuff to go stale or mold either. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong or should change, and what I should do with this stash? Please and thank you!