Excessive Drinking

[magic14]

Hi,

Well I noticed my hammie Scabs (Syrian) was drinking quite a lot of water - I measured and he was drinking 15mls - he was waking up during the day several times to have a long drink. However, there was no excessive peeing. Anyway, we went to the vets and he was put on baytril as he has snuffles, he also has scurfy skin but can't be mites or anything as he'd recently been treated for this, and we got a dipstick to test his urine - which came back negative. We started off giving antibiotics on food but then he decided he'd had enough of that so we put it in his water, thurs night we filled up 20mls of water and by morning it was all gone, then last night we filled up 30mls and again this morning it was all gone. I have just gone to change his litter tray and it is swimming in pee and I mean swimming, I nearly fainted! So if it's not diabetes what can it be causing this? He's still himself and comes out for a play and does his cage acrobats.
Hope someone can help :?

[souffle]

How old is your hamster now? As hamsters get older they often drink more as their kidneys do not work as well as they used to. With kidney failure hamsters lose some of their protein in the urine so may start to lose weight. You can test for protein in the urine which may indicate kidney problems. There is not much you can do about kidney failure but you must ensure that plenty fresh water is always available. The hamster will dehydrate if it does not have enough fluid and this can further damage the kidneys. Do not worry about measuring the water drunk, just let it have as much as it wants. It can help to feed a reduced protein diet and feed some cooked rice and cereal. Water soluble vitamins are also lost so add a vitamin supplement for small animals to the water.
You may need to clean the wet corner twice a day to keep the hamster comfortable. Hope this helps and your little one feels well soon.

[magic14]

Thanks for the reply Souffle.
Scabs was a rescue hammy so not sure of his exact age but he's somewhere around a year and a half although he could be older.

[souffle]

He is really quite a good age for a hamster and we find they often start to drink more from about a year so it may well be the kidneys working less efficiently.

[Minicooper]

When I talk about hamster ages I dont really no what is the average age is?? My dads hamster lived untill he was 1 and a half and Hammis is now 11 months. Also in pets at home it states that a hamster lives around 2-2 half years old.

[souffle]

I would say the the most average age for a ham to live to is about 2 years. Like all animals there is a large variation amongst individuals as to how long they will actually live.

[babyboos]

Syrian hamster normal life expectancy is 1000 days I was always told, though there are many who live more than this, and sadly quite a few less.