Where To Place the Hamster Cage

[Maz]

Hi there.

My teenage son is still talking about getting a hamster and although likes the dwarf ones I have told him that Syrians maybe easier to handle and also a male instead of a female!
The next question is where to put the cage? Obviously being a teenager he spends a lot of time in his room but during the day when he's at school hammy is going to be lonely in there by himself?

The cage could go in the front room but then when my son gets in from school he will want him with him!

Any answers to my dilemma will be gratefully received!
Thank You

[Razor]

Hello! Nice to hear that you'd be getting hamster soon!
While a Syrian certainly is supposed to be easier to tame, most winter white dwarfs are also really easy to tame and love being handled by humans.
I strongly recommend you to place the cage somewhere quiet (so no loud music etc) and where too many people won't be frequenting all the time. It should also have access to daylight, not direct sunlight though. This is so that their sleep cycles stay on track.
While hamsters in the wild are crepuscular (hope I spelt it right.), most domestic hamsters are nocturnal. This is largely due to artificial lighting etc. So the odds are your hamster will be asleep when your son is at school. As long as you provide your hamster with plenty of toys to keep it's mind busy and a good wheel, she'll be perfectly alright by herself and won't feel lonely, since hamsters by nature are solitary animals. But of course, you do need to play with them everyday once tame.

Good luck with the new hamster! Hope to hear more about him/her.

[Fluffagrams]

Syrians are often thought of as being easier to handle because of their size but also because their movements tend to be slower than dwarfs but because of their larger size they can be more powerful if they want to wriggle free. A lot will depend though on the hamster's personality and a fair few of my Chinese have actually enjoyed being handled more than any of my Syrians, who seemed to want to run off and play. I have also had some females that have been cuddlier than some of my boys.

Hamsters will usually spend most of the day sleeping so they won't get lonely whilst your son is at school but the downside to this is that hamsters are awake at various periods throughout the night and they can be rather noisy sometimes so if your son is a light sleeper, I don't recommend keeping the cage in his bedroom.

When I was a teenager we used to keep the hamster's cage in the study or in a corner of the dining room and that seemed to work okay for us so maybe that could be an option?