Hamster Central - View Single Post - Newbie: Picket the WW (we think) and his new house.

AmityvilleHams · 10-02-2020, 05:16 AM

Definitely change the food. Kaytee foods are extremely low quality and quite unsuitable, while Oxbow is an extremely inappropriate diet with hamsters despite making decent products for other pets. Pelleted diets in general are also unsuitable for hamsters. I would go for Pure Bites freeze dried shrimp, chicken, turkey, etc over mealworms though.

Carefresh in general is known to have really high dust levels so unfortunately I would strongly recommend changing that. It may not be ideal to have to change substrates so quickly, but it is enough of a concern to justify it.

With cages, keep in mind that levels and such don't really add to floor space. For anything to count as part of actual floor space, it has to all be on the same continuous level - no modular cages, no levels, no shelves, no platforms, no tube extensions, etc. Hamsters are not naturally climbing animals either, and with a Kallax setup like that you'd have very little actual floor space!

For millet sprays etc in the US, I do know you can sometimes find things like that and oat sprays through the brand Brown's which can even be found in grocery stores. While a lot of their products are pretty low quality and unsuitable they do at least have those very specific decent products.

As far as substrates go, personally I wouldn't bother with aspen or any wood in general other than maybe as an extra litter option. Wood shavings are a very common source for hamster allergic reactions and they also aren't going to be nearly as good for burrowing as a high quality paper(like Small Pet Select's paper bedding). Hemp could be interesting for different texture and unlike wood isn't really known to cause reactions in hamsters from what I've found. It does sometimes cause reactions in humans, but even that is uncommon enough to not rule it out as a good additional substrate. Quality is really important too though, as hemp can sometimes have unsafe additives(citronella being fairly common even with "natural" hemp products which is not safe for hamsters). Aubiose hemp is probably going to be the best choice in the US providing you find a source for it.

10-02-2020, 05:16 AM
AmityvilleHams PM Fluffy for custom title Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 4,545	Re: Newbie: Picket the WW (we think) and his new house. Definitely change the food. Kaytee foods are extremely low quality and quite unsuitable, while Oxbow is an extremely inappropriate diet with hamsters despite making decent products for other pets. Pelleted diets in general are also unsuitable for hamsters. I would go for Pure Bites freeze dried shrimp, chicken, turkey, etc over mealworms though. Carefresh in general is known to have really high dust levels so unfortunately I would strongly recommend changing that. It may not be ideal to have to change substrates so quickly, but it is enough of a concern to justify it. With cages, keep in mind that levels and such don't really add to floor space. For anything to count as part of actual floor space, it has to all be on the same continuous level - no modular cages, no levels, no shelves, no platforms, no tube extensions, etc. Hamsters are not naturally climbing animals either, and with a Kallax setup like that you'd have very little actual floor space! For millet sprays etc in the US, I do know you can sometimes find things like that and oat sprays through the brand Brown's which can even be found in grocery stores. While a lot of their products are pretty low quality and unsuitable they do at least have those very specific decent products. As far as substrates go, personally I wouldn't bother with aspen or any wood in general other than maybe as an extra litter option. Wood shavings are a very common source for hamster allergic reactions and they also aren't going to be nearly as good for burrowing as a high quality paper(like Small Pet Select's paper bedding). Hemp could be interesting for different texture and unlike wood isn't really known to cause reactions in hamsters from what I've found. It does sometimes cause reactions in humans, but even that is uncommon enough to not rule it out as a good additional substrate. Quality is really important too though, as hemp can sometimes have unsafe additives(citronella being fairly common even with "natural" hemp products which is not safe for hamsters). Aubiose hemp is probably going to be the best choice in the US providing you find a source for it.