Adoption?

[awesomedough]

i would recommend woodgreens for adoption in the uk. i got a lovely little 9 week old hamster called simon from there and he was already tame, plus they gave me a HUGE bag of substrate that smelled like him and loads of pipes, an extra house, a huge wheel and they sold me a really good cage for £35.

[GitaBooks]

I volunteer at a shelter and can say it is a dream come true every time a good home comes along for any of our animals. Some shelters/rescues/humane societies get more rodents and some rarely get them, if ever, but it shouldn't be too hard to find a hamster in need of a new home, even being rehomed by the owner.

Thank you for considering adoption! : )

[Pebbles82]

I think ideally, adoption is best. But as you say, this will be your first hamster, it can be nice to know them right through from babyhood through to old age, and you learn a lot about them this way.

There may be babies available for adoption but a lot of hamsters for adoption are older and harder to tame. What part of the Uk are you in as there are different rescues in different parts of the country. The RSPCA doesn't seem to have many hamsters for adoption these days.

A baby hamster can bond with you from a young age as well.

Getting a baby hamster from a breeder is also an option, but again it can be hard to find one at the right time.

If you did get one from a pet shop then maybe go to one of the smaller individual pet shops and ask where they get their hamsters from. Not one of the large places as it's conveyer belt breeding and unethical breeding usually.

I didn't know any different when we got our last Syrian and he came from a small local pet shop. He was huge! They have their own breeder who supplies their hamsters.

The downside I found was he was always a bit nervy and took a long time to tame, even though we had him from a few weeks old. Assume he had had some kind of trauma plus had been living in a small tank with very little in it and got into habits.

It is rather lovely when you choose a baby hamster from a breeder who is living with its siblings and Mum and happy.

Some rescues will tell you how tame a hamster is or whether or not they are beyond being handled, and some rescues will handle them every day to help tame them. It just depends.

If you look on Gumtree as well, there are often adverts for hamsters who are still babies and the owners don't want them any more.

[TaniaOrchid989]

Hi, I have had a syrian that I made the wonderful mistake of purchasing from a pet store. However, I adopted a xwarf hamster 2 days ago and she from my guess looks kike a winter white. My question is how long do I let her settle in her tank for, a week or a few days? She seems to like to come out in the dark, but I'm usually home and need the lights on. She is eating well, I put some bell peper and chia,rice,quinoa out and she took them all.