Terrible hamster product choices

[Azula]

I thought of where to put this thread and I've decided here because these things can influence my hamster's health.
I've recently been very active in learning more about hamster care with the help of Erin's Animals youtube channel and wonderful hamster tumblr How to care for hamsters

Actually I just wrote this to this blog and I want to share it here as well.

Where I live, there are terrible choices of hamster products. The biggest cage you can buy here for a hamster is not even the minimum requirement size or at least I didn't see one. The big ones are with huge gaps between bars because they are intended for rabbits. We do have IKEA, but it's on the other side of the country from where I live. I do plan onto going there and getting a SAMLA bin box because of the price and I need a bigger cage for my dwarf.

Next thing is the bedding. I've visited all petshops in my city and not one of them knows about aspen or carefresh. They look at me as if I came from another planet when I ask them about it and mind you I live in the second largest city in my country. All bedding packages I've seen so far do not say what tree they're made of and it's so frustrating.

I think I probably have the biggest wheel you can buy in a pet shop and it's not even that big. All bigger ones have bars on them which is unacceptable.
There are almost no choices at all when it comes to hamster toys and they mostly consist of hamsterballs (which I do not use) and wooden houses that do not look good because the wood comes off easily. They seem poorly made and I am concerned about hamsters getting hurt by it.
Also food products are mostly vitakraft or versele-laga. I use Vitakraft menu vital and I don't know if it can be harmful.

Some petshops that look extremely fancy even got the hamster species wrong and labeled Russians as Chinese.
I am very annoyed by all of this especially when I see how many things they sell that they shouldn't be selling in the first place.

All hamsters I've owned so far were pet shop hamster because a) I don't know if any breeders exist at all in my area or even country and b) I feel sorry for petshop hamsters and I think to myself that if I can save at least one of them from terrible petshop fate, I've done a good thing. I'd save more, but unfortunately I can't.

[Piebald]

Hey Azula, sounds like an opportunity. Maybe you can make arrangements with some of the better hamster cage makers to sell their products exclusively. Once you have access to the resources you can look into breeding.
Just a thought.

[Pebbles82]

Yes I know it's outrageous some of the things that are sold for Hamsters. Looking at it another way, at least you can't access all the bad products in your country either! In the Ul there is loads of stuff available for hamsters but a lot of it is unsuitable or unsafe.

Good luck with the blog and hope it manages to change things. I think Versele Laga food is supposed to be quite good and you can supplement your mix with some fresh veg and the odd piece of chicken if you have chicken yourself some days, and the occasional small piece of cheese.

Sounds like you will need to make toys and house too - out of cardboard maybe? An old mug on its side can be a good cage hide toy as well, or a plastic plant pot with a door cut in the side and upturned.

The substrate issue is more difficult. Is hemp available anywhere?

[Azula]

I think the hamster cages idea is good, but a bit too far fetched to be honest. Not to mention larger cages are extremely pricey. I think the best idea there is to go buy IKEA's SAMLA bin or the other one (can't remember the name now, it's on Erin's channel) for Syrians and educate people about their existence and usage.

I have a mug I put in Yuki's cage during hot periods of the year because it's nice and cool. I don't use it now however because I noticed the mug can get really cold and she doesn't like it. She has a plastic house now which I clean with hot water, but she doesn't use it either. Her favourite thing is making her own nest with non scented toilet paper next to the house and cover herself with it. That's how I compensate for the bad substrate, I give her lost of non scented toilet paper shreds and she loves it.

I give her regularly fresh veggies and fruit. I've recently bought pet bistro's bag of dry marigold and dandelion. I never seen her once eat it, just smell it and carry it around.

Oh and How to care for hamsters isn't my blog. I just wrote to them to share my frustrating story.

[happy hamster 101]

Hi Azula, it is quite horrible that all these unsafe hamster products are being sold, but I can tell you some things you can replace them with.

With bedding you can search whether it says softwood or hardwood, hardwood is safe as it is aspen however soft woodm is pine or cedar. You can also look at Erin's animals homemade hamster bedding guide .

For the wheels you can put cardboard on the inside and outside of the bared or mesh wheel, or shop online. For a hideaway you can easily use a box with a hole cut in it or once again shop online, the food is probably fine as long as you give your hamster vegetables ( not iceberg lettuce ) and if Syrian or robo hamster some fruit once a week, you can also use flax seed or oats as fibre or mealworms and boiled/scrambled egg as protein.

It really is horrible when bad hamster products are sold, hope this helps!