The question of how to care for a hamster has several aspects. From the very beginning, you need to determine the place of residence for your pet. Most often these animals are kept in cages or aquariums. For hamsters, metal cages measuring 40x30x30 cm are best suited. They are designed for one pair of animals. The optimum temperature for the content can be considered 20-22 ° C. With sharp fluctuations in temperature, some species of these animals sometimes hibernate.
Hamsters are fairly clean rodents, so they need sawdust or special fillers that are used as bedding. Any cage or aquarium requires proper arrangement.
How to care for a hamster to provide him with a maximum of favorable conditions? First of all, you should purchase a special drinking bowl for rodents, which ensures the protection of water from the ingress of anything extraneous. The pet also needs a special feeder. In pet stores, ready-made houses for rodents are sold, but often hamsters ignore them, and therefore it is better to provide the animal with enough straw, hay, rags or paper from which the hamster will later build a cozy nest.
Another attribute of a hamster’s home can be various castors, ladders, pipes and minks sold in specialized stores and designed to increase the physical activity of animals.
How to keep a hamster so that it is always clean and healthy? Usually these animals divide the housing intended for them into distinct zones, so it is better to use rectangular or square aquariums to keep them. Most often, the toilet area is located in one corner of the cage or aquarium, and in the opposite corner of it is a nest with a pantry. The question of how to care for a hamster in order to avoid a specific smell from the excrement and urine of a rodent is decided simply simple: its toilet should be cleaned daily. Typically, when cleaning, the contaminated part of the sawdust or filler is replaced with fresh litter. The entire cage or aquarium should be cleaned 1-2 times a week. It is necessary to periodically wash the aquarium or cage with specialized tools or ordinary water, in which soda and salt are previously dissolved. It is better to transplant the pet during cleaning into a walking ball or a jar.
Twice a week you need to thoroughly wash the drinker. It is washed with plain water, as the use of various chemicals can cause significant harm to your pet. The hamster's feeder is also periodically washed. In general, the guarantee of the health of these rodents is the cleanliness of their home.
Hamsters arrange peculiar storage rooms in their dwelling. Usually they hide various supplies under the sawdust or filler. Taking these stocks is not recommended, as these animals experience real stress in this case.
Hamsters can not be bathed. They independently cope with the cleaning of their skins. These rodents are very fond of swimming in the sand, so periodically put in a cage a special bath with sand intended for these purposes.
Among the many genera of these animals there are dwarf hamsters, whose body length rarely exceeds 8 cm, and the weight of adult animals is only 8 g. They have a grayish-brown color from the back and a light underneath. These hamsters are perfectly tamed and absolutely do not bite. They can live in cells or aquariums in fairly large groups. Since these animals are very small and have the ability to climb into different gaps, they need to select a cage with a denser lattice.
You already know how to care for a hamster. If you carefully monitor your pets and perform all the simple regular procedures, they will always please you with their activity and health. For any changes in the behavior of the hamster, you should consult your veterinarian.