Housing Hamsters

Hamsters in the wild are scavengers, searching for food and transporting it to their dens all day long. They can cover nearly 4 miles a day, hunting back and forth, hither and yon.

It is essential that your hamster have a clean, odor-free environment with a soft floor and plenty of room for exercise.
The minimum requirement in our opinion is a 10 gallon aquarium tank.
 
There are many more, fun, colorful, and more stimulating environments on the market. A cage needs good ventilation, soft flooring, ease of cleaning, room to exercise, stimulating layout.
 
Wire cages provide the best ventilaiton. However, a wire floor can be hard on hamster feet. Glass enclosures keep out unwanted draughts, but they are sometimes hard to clean. Brightly colored platic enclosures can be ideal (with tubes and habitats attached into great playscapes), but they can also be hard to clean and lacking in ventilation. Some also allow the occassional escape because plastic can be chewed.
Any of the above types of housing are fine if you take care to ensure the proper hygiene. Most popular are the plastic maze-type of hamster cage. If you choose a cage that you can add to, purchase the main unit and SEVERAL different attachments. The main cage in any of the brands we know is NOT adequate as a stand-alone cage. They are much too small. Your hamster MUST have more room. Additionally, almost none of the plastic main units has adequate ventilation.
 
Hamsters urinate and the urine turns to ammonia. It can actually take your breath away if not adequately cleaned and ventilated. Many hamsters suffer severe ammonia inhalation problems from inadequately ventilated spaces.
 
The litter used in the bottom of the cage can also cause problems. We do not recommend using cedar or other high-resin wood litter. Those litters also put off very strong and corrosive fumes that "burn" your hamster's eyes nad lungs. Instead, use a paper-based litter.
 
Tube attachments (you can purchase them to attach to most of the types of cages mentioned above) add variety to your hamster's landscape. Keeping him active and stimulated is a challenge. change the configuration of the tubes randomly and often. Add separate dens, sleeping areas, dinng areas, and areas where you can have physical contact with him on a regular basis. Be sure to keep the tubes washed. They collect urine and feces and have almost no ventilation.
 
Hamsters are very active. They can run up to 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) per day. Exercise burns off excess calories and energy. It also stimulates the digestive tract, moving food through the stomach and intestines to make digestion easier. Constipation and intestinal blockages can be dangerous.
 
Always provide your hamster with some means of exercise to stay in good health. Exercise wheels (you can purchase squeak-proof wheels if you don't like the nocturnal spinning of his habitual running cycle), exercise balls, racers, and exercise pens are a necessary part of small animal care.
 
Syrian (golden and teddybear) hamsters are solitary and unsociable with their own. The rule: One Syrian hamster = one cage. Do not house them together.
 
Dwarf hamsters can live in colonies of up to 10 hamsters of the same sex together.
 

 
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