L e d lights

[SKB_Hamsters]

Originally Posted by alpacassei

If hamster vision is anything like mine (I’m super blind), they should be able to see the lights, just not the colour so in hamster vision it will look like white lights!

Although the difference with human eyes even if you have poor vision is that we still have the specific cone cell receptor in our eyes which can determine the presence of red light even if our brains can’t perceive it as red. Whereas with nocturnal/crepuscular animals have adapted/evolved not to have the cone cell in their eye to detect red lights (as they are longer wavelength of light which aren’t present at night or in low light) therefore there eye consists of more rod cells which also can’t detect red lights but the shorter wavelengths of light like blue and green - therefore red light don’t disrupt a hamster normal night vision.
I also have experimented with my hamster with using difference colours of lights as my red light I can change them to a different colour - when they were red they continued their normal night time routine, if I changed the colour they would stand up looking around.

[cypher]

All the science stuff aside I have my red light on every evening for a while before I go to bed & the hams do just do their thing as if it were dark but they will all pause briefly when I turn the light off so they are aware of the light to some extent, it obviously doesn't bother them but should still be indirect & not directed at or into or too close to the cage.