This is gonna sound silly

[Hamsterz4Life]

Yes, only the hamster's carer knows that individual hamster. So they have to make the decision of finding the best cage possible to suit their hamster's needs! Although there is no set minimum officially, unless adviced otherwise by a qualified small animal expert(i.e. a vet) then I would not recommend less than 360 sq inches for any hamster, as I just feel that a cage that small can not provide enough enrichment! But that is just my opinon. x

[kyrilliondaemon]

Yes... So to stick to the original topic - there isn't really a set minimum and some people do feel syrians need bigger than dwarf hams. Its the fun of it all being opinions

[Hamsterz4Life]

I am on many forums and that is why I think pet forums are the best! Everyone has their own individual opinions on how to do one thing... how to care for your hamster in the best possible way. We are all animal lovers and we all want the best at the end of the day! x

[SleepyMini]

As far as I know there are really different guidelines all over the world, for me a minimum for any species is 80cm x 50cm, that's my personal minimum, but I still prefer more.

My Syrians don't really use all the space I gave them, but my dwarf loves to explore all the cage, my syrians are very lazy.

For exemple in Brazil, their minimum is 40cm x 30cm of floor space added to 3 levels at least, because they don't have bigger cages than that and they also don't have big bin cages and the biggest they have there is 60cm x 40cm, I know this because I talk with a lot of brazilian owners daily.

My hamster Sharon used to live on a pretty small cage of 30cm, when I adopted her and put her on her Skyline Falco 100, which has 100cm x 50cm x 75cm and two added 50cm levels, she looks much happier and less stressed.

In my opinion it is cruelity to put a hamster on a 30cm cage, that's just too small.

I still find roborovskis and russians more active than the other species, so I tend to use more toys with them, my Syrians don't give any importance to the toys.

But of course, this is only my opinion about cage sizes.

[RedSky]

I go with what I read as the RSPCA minimum size of 70cm x 40cm. Although I am building my own cages at the moment and my Syrian will have 70cm x 50cm and 2 of my dwarf hamsters (hybrids) will have 60cm x 50 cm and my third dwarf will have 50cm x 50cm and we will see how she does. This one is blind and doesn't like changes or large spaces. I will have to do a gradual introduction into this cage and watch her very carefully. All the cages will have 2 shelves which I don't take into account when looking at floor space, as to me it isn't the floor.
Each ham is different and I think one of my dwarf hamsters would use more room than I am able to give her so she comes out more than the other two, but she doesn't like being in a ball where as the other one does. My Syrian comes out most of all and for longer as she tolerates it better and seems to like to interact with people more than my dwarf hamsters.

Just out of interest what is the 360"squared based off cage wise?
One of my dwarf hamsters currently lives in a 3 ft x 1ft tank, isn't this already bigger than the 360?