Meet the boys!

[Doubletrouble]

Hi, here are our two new boys.
Firstly let me introduce 'Capatin Jack Sparrow' the fawn one. In my book he is called Jack!
Secondly we have 'Davy Jones' do you sense a theme here! He is white/fawn and as you have guessed it I call him Davy.
They belong to my kids but I am just crazy about them! :mad:I was quite surprised not to have any cutie fluffy names, but hey we are now awaiting the arrival of an orange fish called 'Mr Bean' so I guess as mum I will just go with the flow! ](*,)
They live in a Duna Fun Hamster Cage, £50 from Pets at home, I did source this to see if I could get it cheaper and had no luck. Early days, but a cracking cage.
Went to get some little extra treats today and came out skint with a huge carrier bag, so I think these two are going to be very pampered little dudes! ;)
Thanks to all who have made me welcome and the advice given.
Fingers crossed the pictures upload ok
http://Feb, Fun, Hamster,Selling 034.jpg
http://Feb, Fun, Hamster,Selling 025.jpg
http://Feb, Fun, Hamster,Selling 030.jpg
http://Feb, Fun, Hamster,Selling 015.jpg
http://Feb, Fun, Hamster,Selling 012.jpg

[BaileyandBeth]

Awh they're gorgeous little chaps! I bet the kids love them!

[Humphrey Furball]

Cute cute cute! Davy (I think) reaching up to the water bottle looks so adorable and teeny tiny!

[Doubletrouble]

Hiya! Oh they do the are just so excited and want to love them all the time, well we all do. They are the centre point of our house now! I even snuck downstairs at 12.45am to see them going mad in the cages dashing about and on the wheel! Needless to say early to bed tonight! lol

[p_anda]

They're a very handsome pair.:)

[Doubletrouble]

lol Davy is the one covered in shavings, for some reason he dives underneath and runs along the cage, he is just so funny, then he stops and stares at us laughing our socks off! You tend mostly just to see his head with what looks like a bad (shavings) blonde wig on!

[fluffymunchkins]

Awww the are fabulous :)
Chinese often like to tunnel around like little ninjas x

[vanilla-yazoo]

welcome, and hello lil babys!!
davey is a dominant spot and jack is a normal, both chinese :D
and soo cute!!!


chinese are very sweet little creatures when you get to know them and i love how they cling to you!

a warning tho, when I had chinese as a group it didnt end well, so keep a eye and ear out. pairs are tricky >.<

[racinghamster]

Oh no, two cute chinese boys! :) I echo what vanilla-yazoo said though regarding fall outs and they can be nasty when and if they do occur. Chinese males are a little more placid with one another than the females are so you may get lucky and they won`t start to fight. But if you sleep upstairs and they are downstairs, they could do so during the night when you can`t see or hear them arguing so it might be a good idea to keep them in your room during the night? Just as a precaution. Once they reach maturity, this is when fall-outs can happen. Having a cage the size of the Zoozone 1 should help in terms of allowing the boys more space and two wheels (regular silent spinners are best and probably quietest).

What mix are they fed on? They should avoid anything with sweetners or glucose as chinese hamsters can be prone to diabetes. Adding smaller seeds to their mix like millet will go down well and a millet spray. There is good information in the nutrition section for chinese and dwarf hamsters in general.

Chinese are my favourite and will steal your heart in no time. They don`t mind handling too much but they may still nip if held too long, so feeding little bits of miller from your open hand inside their cage will help to tame them.

[Doubletrouble]

Hi, thanks everyone for the tips, most welcome as this is my first time having chinese chappies, I have always had syrian. We all adore these guys even my OH chuckles at them and watches when he thinks I am not looking!
They have a large cage it is the duna fun one and it is huge it is the one that has the cage centre that can be removed.
So far so good they sleep together even in the little house they curl up side by side they are quite inseperable at the moment but like you say when they mature they may not get on. My friends fight sometime and one of them lies on his back feet up in the air as if to say 'I give up' strange little chaps at times aren't they! Jack did a little nip on my boy but then I realise he had chocolate on his palms from a treat, so no wonder! Funny he remembers to wash his hands more! They love to be handled I hold the kids hands flat put mine either side as platforms and let them run along our hands as they are too quick for the kids at the moment, but they just adore them so much it is great to see.
I might not be able to have them upstairs as they are so loud we can hear them when we are in bed, so I think they would keep the kids and neighbours up all night. I keep sneaking down to see them whizz around, they sure go for it, they have a tube castle thing in the cage as well now!
They are on pets at home musili as that is what they were fed on so keeping them on that for the moment as had to buy a big bag of it, not sure whether to change it, they seem happy enough, I do know about changing the food slightly over time so they don't get tummy trouble, so I will just wait and see.
Right off to play with my little fellows!
Cheerio for now x

[racinghamster]

I`ve read that Pets At Home museli has added sugar but you would need to read the actual bag for the ingredients list and typical analysis. You might see lots of yellow corn for example and also fillers like grass pellets? Corn contains glucose. I used to pick out corn, pea flakes and anything else I knew had natural sugars in it.

Burgess sell a dwarf version of their Supahamster Harvest and Pets At Home stock this, so if you wanted to switch, you could take back the food they gave you and ask them to change it due to the information you have been given about chinese hamsters being prone to diebetes. When hamsters are young, this is when their exposure to such foods can do the harm and it doesn`t show until they get a bit older and start drinking a lot and urinating more. That`s not to say your lads will actually be genetically prone to the condition, but it`s better to be cautious with their diet really early on.

You can add other things to their food such as:

Dry mealworms (Tesco/Asda/Pet shops)
Millet/canary mix (Pet shops)
Hemp seed (usually already in canary mix but available in healthfood shops)
Kallo organic wholegrain puffed rice (must be the plain one without honey added) available in healthfood shops
Dry porridge oats (Tesco organic porridge jumbo oats are great!)

All of the above will be healthy additions to add to a mix, especially the Burgess Supahamster dwarf mix. :) Your boys sound great and their cage is fine by the way. I thought you had the ordinary Duna but the Duna Fun is much bigger.

[Doubletrouble]

Thanks so much for the advice, I will get some and wean them off it. Yes the cage is huge it won't even go on my side table it is so big and I don't want it getting knocked so moving my lounge round today just for them! lol They are together all the time, wherever one goes in the cage to sleep the other has to be with it, they tend to change where they sleep. Found them in a vertical tube the other day!
Oh just a quick question when I do a quick reply at the bottom of the page I don't get smileys! How do I put them in. Thanks x

[Doubletrouble]

Just a thought, I was told at Pets at home that they drink a lot, do you think this is because of diabetes or is it normal! My friend has two and they drink loads, mine don't seem to drink that much.

[racinghamster]

They should only really appear to drink abnormal amounts of water if they are diabetic. A small hamster like this will usually drink about 5ml a day from a bottle. Maybe a little more depending on the environment and temperatures. My female chinese only came out for a drink maybe two, three times during the day, but didn`t drink for long periods at a time. When you keep a pair, you might notice that more water has been drank just because they are more active. Your boys are still young, so I wouldn`t think they would drink too much too often. Diabetes manifests because the pancreas can`t produce insulin, but I can`t say whether this can affect really young animals (under six months of age) or whether it tends to impact as the animals age. This is why getting their diet right early on is a must. You can safely switch them from the mix they are on, to this other one with the add-ins without weaning them off it. Normally syrian hamsters are slowly introduced to new food over a period of days and weeks because they have a more sensitive gut, but because chinese can`t tolarete added sugars, they can be switched right away and will still love the smaller seeds in the new mix.

You can also give them a millet spray. They will nibble off the tiny seeds from the spray.

[Doubletrouble]

Thanks, mine don't seem to drink that much, so was concerned as it went against what I was told and what my friends chinese do. I will mention all this to them.
Off to get some millet spray once moved the house around to fit the cage in!

[racinghamster]

I can`t say I`ve heard of (or been told about) chinese hamsters drinking a lot or more than your average dwarf hamster would? Pet shops in general give out information that can be baffling really.

Do look at asking them to switch your food mix aswell. The Burgess dwarf mix (yellow bag) is better for their needs. I actually used the Burgess Hamster harvest normal mix but this has banana pieces in it and a few other things that need removed, so unless you want to sit and remove all these ingredients, you would be better just using the dwarf version they sell and adding the other little things I mentioned above for added variety. :)

[jess_jolie]

Try getting some mealworms - all mine love them. I used dried but you can get live ones (I think you have to remove their heads first as they can give a nasty bite if pouched). They are quite fatty so can be used a treat, or in your food if you get the Burgess mix, and can be given to dwarf hams :)

[jess_jolie]

Would the canary mix you get at like PaH with millet etc in be okay to give to a dwarf/Chinese?

[hannahbubble]

The p@h muesli isn't great for chinese as there are quite a few bits you have to take out, including the green and brown balls and the yellow flakes.

It is best to put them on a mix aimed at diabetes prone species, Silver on this forum has a mix on the internet, their is a link in her sig. That is excellent for them.

[racinghamster]

Canary mix tends to have other seeds in it aswell as various millets including linseed and hemp seed. There is also a tiny black seed sometimes that could be rapeseed or niger seed. All are safe and beneficial.

[hannahbubble]

RH - would you add canary mix in to the food they have or feed it as a treat?

Also my above post is irrelevant, I think I posted without seeing there was another page to read.

[jess_jolie]

Thaks RH - I shall get some for some scatter feeding :)

[Teddybearhamster420]

Hi! Nice to meet you and yours(kids!) hamsters! :mad: They are very cute! Making me want a chinese :3

I havnt reead ALL the replys here, so i applogise is someone has already meantion this, but I see Davy and Jack (great names!) have a fluffy nesting material? Thats very dangerous, I would recommend you remove it at once :( I wont go into full detail, but i can say from my heart its very dangerous..

[racinghamster]

Any millet type seed be it plain millet, mixed millet or canary seed can be added to the main meal, or scatter fed. Millet seed is quite small though so can get lost at the bottom of a hamster food mix, so I tend to keep my millet/canary mix in it`s own tub and add it on it`s own. You can also put a little drop in your palm and allow the hamster to scoop it up. It`s a good way of hand taming.

Edited to add: Ripped up plain white toilet paper is ideal nesting material and safe. Just the cheap own brand toilet paper in white. Much cheaper and safer than the stuff pet shops push. There is also a paper based bedding called Safebed. pets At Home sell it and it`s basically just strands or flakes of paper parchment.

[Doubletrouble]

My hamsters (cough cough I really must get that looked at!) I mean the kids hamsters have settled in very well and love being handled so really pleased.

Thanks for the advice about the bedding it is natural cotton stuff it came with the cage, I actually bought the shreds of paper stuff myself so will change it now.

I can be a bit of a big girls blouse so the thought of mealworm kind of pales me being very honest here, so to do live I know I just couldn't do it. But am going on another treat buying day tomorrow so will get the millet etc. Thank for all the tips on food. x

[kyrilliondaemon]

Just out of curiosity, is it the duna fun or the duna fun large? (Am wondering since one is basically a mini duna with tubes and an extra shelf, whereas the other is much bigger.)

[Scarlett]

Loving the third pic. <3 Their little sweeties. They make a great pair!

[Vectis Hamstery]

Congratulations on you (erm, I mean your children's!) new hamsters. They're handsome chappies. I haven't had a lot of luck with pairs of Chinese but it can work if the boy hams are lazy enough! The thing to remember is if they draw blood they need to be separated. Saying that, I hope yours live in happy harmony :). It's lovely to see another Chinese hammy convert!

[Doubletrouble]

Thanks, they are just the best! They even run in the wheel together!
Kyrilliondaemon - it is the duna fun, it is very big, it has 2 shelves in it and the house on the top shelf I have added a castle platform house that has just one tube on the side and there is still so much room in it they love it, there is loads of floor space in it. You can remove the centre cage bit so it is not as high and just have the base and the plastic top, but I keep it as it is.
I have to say looking at all the ones I have seen and on the web, I am so glad I went for this, easy to clean out, spacious and a fantastic large opening at the top.
I have to say when asking whether to take one that was made up in the shop or a boxed one, I was wanting to check the contents before buying incase I got home and anything wrong I would be scuppered with 2 hamsters in a little travel box! The sales assistant did say she had a job with the tubes, so went for the display one! And all is good.

[kyrilliondaemon]

I was just wondering if it was the normal one or the large was all, so thanks for answering :)
I know how big it is, we've got two with lone robos in until we sort ourselves out and see if they fancy being reintroduced lol (We've meant to two nights running but they've not been awake at the same times so its been delayed.) They're actually small cages by our cage standards lol. I'm glad your two are happy though :)