r/hamstercare

Hi 👋🏼 We're first time hamster owners and our family is desperate for some wisdom on our little Syrian hamster, Mochi, please! We're based in the UK and Mochi came from an ethical breeder. He's now 3 months old and his enclosure is a kitted out Bucatstate 3.0 120cm with 12.6" wheel, multiple sprays, hides, substrates, the best quality food and 10" of Bucatstate paper bedding. We put I'm a lot of research and love to preparing for him.

The issue is this: Mochi wakes at around 1:30am and then goes underground around 2-3 hours later. Other than that, he doesn't come above ground to say hello. I don't think he's an actual ghost ham, just not settled yet—or maybe I've not done the right things and have created an issue?

He has lived with us for 6 weeks now, he was about 8 weeks old when he arrived. His breeder handled him daily and was very affectionate with him. For the first 5 weeks we woke every night (when our hamster-cam alerted us that he'd woken) and tried training him by treat bombing with the best goodies. He was friendly and sweet but we haven't been able to shift his waking time at all. And I'm fairly sure we haven't been using the right approach because nothing has worked. I have tried feeding him at 8pm every night for a while now and he still doesn't come out when it's feeding to me. I was told it's so easy to train them... BUT HOW DO I DO THAT? He is such a gentle soul and so sweet when we do interact. He's never bitten anyone and was cuddled and kissed by his breeder so he was used to human interaction. His personality is gentle, shy, cautious. Though maybe he just needs time to build confidence?

I just don't know how to move forward with him from here in taming and getting to spend time together... We love this little sweet potato. Can you please recommend things we can at least try to help him want to hang out with us? What are your best tips? How do we get him eager to pop out and say hello when he hears us, the way yours do? He won't come up to say hi at all yet.

Thanks so much for your help in advance!

I just watched Amy Poehler’s new episode and her guest this week was Billie Eilish!!! Around an hour in she talks about her new dwarf hamster Tomato Bisque Soup and shares photos of her habitat! She talked about how hamsters need textures, sprays, and enrichment 🥹 It’s so exciting to see a celebrity as famous as Billie talk about proper hamster care. The story is really cute and she said Tomato Bisque is a rescue :)

I just saw my hamster lying dead on the ground. I had a cat and the door to the room where the hamster was was always closed, my hamster escaped from its cage and managed to get under the door. Then my cat strangled him,I woke up because I heard a sound and saw that my hamster was dead, I just buried it, I need your mental support. Thank you. RIP MEGATRON REST IN PEACE

hi guys! i got a syrian hamster today (he’s called Fidget) and he’s a really friendly boy, hes white with black dots like a little dalmatian, i love him already.
i haven’t had hamsters since i was a kid, back when it was normal for them to be a in 1ft long bright pink cage with a tube through it lol, but i’m doing things very differently this time.
the cage i got (temporarily) is 95cm long, 41cm tall and 57cm deep, i plan on getting a ferplast 120cm cage next week, but i wanted this specific hammy and didn’t want him to sell, but all of my research has said this is plenty big enough, especially for a couple of weeks.

here is a list of what i bought:
-sawdust bedding (8 inches deep)
-care-fresh
-large wheel
-4 different hides, 2 of which are edible
-water bottle
-food dish
-sand bowl and hamster sand
-climbing frame
-willow sticks to chew on
-dried apple pieces, corn pieces, flower mix, dried mealworms amongst some other treats for him.
-food, vegetable seed mix and fruit seed mix
-tubes for uber his bedding
-wooden seesaw

i know i got the minimum and he already seems so happy, i love watching him explore. but what can i get extra that will make the enclosure go from good to great. i plan on buying him a little bridge too. i’m uk based so please recommend things accessible here too, thank you SO much for any help, im hoping to learn as much as i can to make him the happiest hammy.

i work in the pet shop i got him from, and ive witnessed too many people buy a 50cm cage, put 2 inches of bedding in and a single hide, so i want to do the best i can for him. please be nice, im open to ALL suggestions :)

Banana has passed away. But i wanted to share this sweet memory I had with him before he passed. I knew it was the end, and I knew he loved chicken. So my mom made him his own boilder chicken wing!

I didn't let him eat the whole thing, but he enjoyed every moment of it.

In the background, you can hear my mom singing a little song about Banana, who she called, "Nanners".

Gonna miss that little guy

this is my hammy :) i’m still unsure of his name (give me recommendations!) i’ve had him for 15 days now and he’s so so sweet but incredibly skittish. he is not a biter THANKFULLY. my previous hamster was vicious and would bite me til i bled. i could never figure out why :( so he is a breath of fresh air already. he runs and hides at the smallest of noises though and freezes up if he sees my hand. his breathing gets very quick as well. i figured this would happen up until this point but im unsure of how to make him more comfortable and form a real bond with him?

he will eat food from my hand as u can see in the picture but as soon as he’s done he runs away so fast and doesn’t come back out. i speak to him in a very soft tone so he can get used to my voice. im trying to hand feed him at the same time everyday so he can get used to a schedule. should i just keep doing what im doing already?

as for his enclosure, im using the biggest bin i could find (200qts) and diyed it from my previous hamster. there is 7-8 inches of bedding (sorry u cant really tell w the pic 😭) with multiple hiding spots. he has a multi chamber hide w his water bottle. im using the rat and mouse pellets for protein (but i have to add water to them and get them “squishy” or he wont eat them, same w my other hammy) and higgins vita garden for his other food, as well as hand feeding a veggie 3x a week (either carrot or broccoli). i’m noticing he won’t really chew anything? i have some chew toys and sprays but he seems uninterested in everything. i’m working on adding more clutter but i need recommendations for what to add. i have coconut fiber as another substrate but it’s SO messy so im unsure of how to add it to his cage. any recommendations for specific things i talked abt or in general? thank u!

Weird question Today I saw a rodent( mouse or junvilenile rat) running across my room 20 minutes after I let my hamster out for free-roam for the first time. This has never happened before. We've had an infestation before and had professionals come in to handle it( we had to use poison the end). They were gone for a year, and now they're back. I am worried it gonna stressed my hammy out or worse. Trap didnt work before. Any one handled the same situation befor?

My hamster is chewing through the bottom of her cage under one of her burrows, we’ve added a lot of stimulation and things to chew but maybe there’s something else missing? Any ideas would really help!

This is an older video from last summer in his playpen.

Side note,

These are kapok fibers on the right side in his house(later in the video in his enclosure), not the very dangerous cotton hamster wool.

However, I have also completely removed these kapok fibers because I have read reports that they can also be dangerous if swallowed and can lead to death in cases of severe constipation.

And even though they are small fibers, they can still get stuck in the paws and result in amputations.

Instead, I gave my hamster lots of pieces of toilet paper as nesting material.

this is the third time i’ve had to refill it 🫩 i’ve already tried wiggling the ball around and filling it to the very top and shaking it. nothing is working. any recommendations?

can any of you hamster geniuses tell me my hamsters age by her teeth (didn’t even know that was a thing lol) and I assume she is a girl but someone pls confirm it for me! TY

Hi all! I am rescuing a female (roughly a year old) hairless syrian hamster. I know her current set up isn’t healthy for any hamster (picking her up asap) so I’m going to get her a new set up. I’ve read online their skin is very sensitive, so you can’t give them the typical wood/roughly textured environments most hamsters should have. Does anyone have any advice on what to add to her environment to accommodate her skin but still be enriching? Any advice at all appreciated!!

there’s been so many complaints about them using ai for their stickers and images
their doing a contest now where people make drawing and they will use those for their stickers instead
this is exciting

Starting to with steward may be a stewette, i will add some photos in the comments but its very hard to get clear ones as hes a robo lmao.