Basic Facts & Info

A little bit of info on little bits of fluff.

1) Dwarf hamsters live about 1.5 to 2 years but can live to be 4.

2) Hamsters can be taught how to come by name with time, practice, and patience.

3) Hamsters can remember their relatives.

4) Campbell's dwarf hamsters are a very new breed. They weren't widely sold as pets until around 1995.

5) If your hamster's toe nails are getting long, it is possible to clip their nails at home. Don't clip too short!

6) If you're nervous about clipping your hamster's nails yourself, try lining the hamster's running wheel with fine grain sandpaper and the ends of his nails will be worn down while he runs.

7) If your hamster chews on his cage bars and not his chewsticks try giving him dog biscuits. They're tasty, hard, and will give him a little more protein.

8) Dwarf hamsters' breeding season is from April to September. But, if kept in light that says on for eight hours or more a day, they will breed throughout the entire year. Please try to make sure your female isn't constantly pregnant and raising babies though!

9) Wait until your female hamster is at least 3 months old until you try breeding her and make sure she is in excellent health.

10) Hamsters cannot be spayed or neutered. If you don't want babies you have to separate males from females.

11) When dwarf hamsters are pregnant, you can control the sex of the babies! By controlling the temperature in the room the mother is kept, you can manipulate whether she will have more boys or girls. If you keep her in warmer temperatures, she will have more boys. If you keep her in cooler temperatures, she will have more girls. ( This of course is not totally proven and may not always work )

12) NEVER use cedar or pine bedding. Aspen is a good choice or other products like SaniChips (heat treated aspen chips), CareFRESH (a paper product). Gentle Touch is very good at odor control. It can be used as a base with bedding on top.

13) Avoid using cotton or fiber type bedding for nesting materials. Instead use plain, unscented, white toilet paper.

14) Do NOT give your hamster oranges or other citrus fruits, they are bad for them.

15) Hamsters are nocturnal (meaning they are mainly awake and active at night or late evening). It's best to handle your hamster around the evening. Otherwise, if he isn't very tame or doesn't know you well yet and you wake him up in the middle of the day, he may bite you.

This is the Basis Facts & Info page of Sugar & Nimbus' Dwarf Hamster Page

Fill your mind with hamster facts at Sugar & Nimbus' Dwarf Hamster Page!