Lifetime wheel & saucer habits

[quisp65]

My Winter White is at the 1 year purchase mark and check of my nightly video recordings shows 2 days without wheel or saucer exercise with a day in between with minimal activity. Last month he was many hours of exercise per night. Close inspection of him shows no health issues and he is still taking sunflower seeds from me and drinking water and weight appears good and I'm not concerned it's a health issue that I need to take him to the vet.

Since this is my first hamster I want to get a general FEEL for AVERAGES of wheel activity as they age. How would you describe the change of wheel and/or saucer activity in later years? Do they have days without and go back? What's a ROUGH estimate of life span when they totally give up the wheel? I know it's always different, but if you could sum things up things the best so a hamster newb could have some understanding of what a many time hamster owner has experienced?

Thanks

[cypher]

I really think it's difficult to give any averages, all of mine have been different in the way they've slowed down including wheel use but I wouldn't expect to see that kind of change until at least 18 months really.
Their routine & activity does change from time to time though, sometimes for no apparent reason, sometimes it's the weather, if it's colder or hotter than usual they may be less active.
If your ham seems fine in general doesn't have any kind of injury that you can see then I wouldn't think it would be a health issue although it isn't always easy to see if something is wrong as they are good at hiding signs of illness. Maybe just give it a bit longer & see if the behaviour continues or he shows any other signs of a problem.