What size of silent spinner should I get?

[SigmaJW]

Hey everyone. Lately I'm gearing up to buy a new hamster. I haven't had one in several years, and my last hamster was a black bear hamster.

I don't recall him being very large so I'm curious what size silent spinner to be buying. Or alternatively, what size hamster to get.

So like I said, my black bear was relatively small. My friend had a teddy bear and he was nearly twice his size. Other than these two I don't know the sizes of the other syrian hamster varieties.

The problem I'm having is that I haven't decided on what kind of syrian to get, and I'm preparing all the equipment before hand. I've thought about getting the 12'' silent spinner, but that seems just massive. Yet all the footage I've seen of the "medium" 6.5" one all the hamsters look like they're straining their backs.

Now my question. Do the different syrian varieties come in different sizes? Assuming I go with the medium wheel, is this going to be too small for them? Or will it fit the smaller ones?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[souffle]

The 6.5in spinner is too small for a syrian unless they are very young and small. If you can fit the 12in one in the cage that is fine or you could consider a Wodent wheel Junior which you should find OK in the USA.
Syrians can vary in size quite a lot depending on their genetic lines but the medium one is just not big enough for any adult. An 8in wheel minimum is required and for larger hamsters even bigger.

[SigmaJW]

Originally Posted by souffle

The 6.5in spinner is too small for a syrian unless they are very young and small. If you can fit the 12in one in the cage that is fine or you could consider a Wodent wheel Junior which you should find OK in the USA.
Syrians can vary in size quite a lot depending on their genetic lines but the medium one is just not big enough for any adult. An 8in wheel minimum is required and for larger hamsters even bigger.

I've heard about those wodent wheels. But are they silent? The hamster cage is going literally right next to my bed. (I have nowhere else to put it) If it makes noise then there's no way I'm getting one.

[souffle]

I would say the wodent wheels are quieter than the silent spinners. Silent spinners are not really silent to be honest. They also bang around on the floor when the hamster runs and we have to tape our dwarf ones down!
You do hear a pattering of feet on the wodent wheels as they run on the track. We also tape these down as the stand can again bump on the floor.
The Karlie wonderland Bogie wooden wheels are reputed to be the quietest but we do not have any of these so can't really comment.
Right next to your bed you are going to hear the hamster or indeed any animal I'm afraid as it will probably dig around and do all sorts of normal hamstery things most of the night.
Maybe it can be moved into another room while you sleep?

[Flamestriker]

I have a Syrian with her 12inch flying saucer and two robos with a mini ss and a mini flying saucer in my room and I sleep fine. Squeak did have a karlie wheel but outgrew it, and I love those wheels because they are so quiet. Shame zoo plus don't sell the 28cm ones anymore

[Jandrhamster]

I have a Syrian with her 12inch flying saucer

i agree with the flying saucer.. it is a good wheel... but i am not that fust on it.. 12" silent spinners are great for syrian hamsters... and for robo hamsters i think the max is 6.5" because it would be to heavy going bigger? someone correct me ... and ofcourse then with syrians the minumum is 20cm but tbh if i were you go bigger.. because that is COMPLETE minumum. for syrians ofcourse as 20cm would be fine for chinese, russian i think? and also if i were you start off with short haired syrians... although i started off with a longhaired. but i think short haired are easier?...

[kyrilliondaemon]

We find silent spinners silent! But others do sometimes have issues with them.
For a syrian (the "varieties" are all basically the same), Souffle is right, you want an 8" wheel as the minimum. We use 11" and 12" for ours, but thats only because she's really fussy with wheels.

Personally I dislike flying saucers as I find they take up too much room in the cage, plus when we bought them we had a lot of problems, but if you want a giant amount of space taken up in your cage then they work too.

I'd stick to either a silent spinner, wodent wheel, or the trixie rodent wheels (aka cheap wodent wheels for buying when wodent wheels are out of stock lol), but thats my personal preferences and we've never owned a wodent wheel. Would have one... But yeah, they were out of stock and we needed a bigger wheel urgently so got the rodent wheel instead.

Oh and yes - All wheels do stay in our bedroom and are more than capable of disturbing our sleep if they're noisy. We have seven 6.5" silent spinners and they're great for not disturbing sleep, plus a 12" silent spinner and 11" rodent wheel in Scamps cage, and she never wakes us on her wheels either


And Jandr - Why are you now discussing roborovskis when the thread is about syrian hamsters? Oh and I don't know if they can use the 12", I've never offered either of Scamp's wheels to the dwarves because I er... really haven't seen the point... The 6.5" ones work fantastically for roborovskis and russian hybrids, and I assume Campbells and Winter whites too. I can't speak for chinese though. I also don't see the point in getting dwarves bigger - not because I don't think they can move them, I'd actually be surprised if Skip couldn't use at least the rodent wheel, and he's our smallest fully grown dwarf... But because theres no point in the wheel taking up twice as much space as it needs to.

[Jandrhamster]

And Jandr - Why are you now discussing roborovskis when the thread is about syrian hamsters? Oh and I don't know if they can use the 12", I've never offered either of Scamp's wheels to the dwarves because I er... really haven't seen the point... The 6.5" ones work fantastically for roborovskis and russian hybrids, and I assume Campbells and Winter whites too. I can't speak for chinese though. I also don't see the point in getting dwarves bigger - not because I don't think they can move them, I'd actually be surprised if Skip couldn't use at least the rodent wheel, and he's our smallest fully grown dwarf... But because theres no point in the wheel taking up twice as much space as it needs to.

A. Its Jack.
B. I said that 20cm would be OK for chinese hamsters and russians. i didnt say that i recommend going bigger. I said i recommend going bigger for Syrians. and also if you read through i wrote

and for robo hamsters i think the max is 6.5" because it would be to heavy going bigger?

so i said that it would'nt be that good to go bigger for robo's. you are really trying to wind me up today.

[kyrilliondaemon]

No its Jandr for most of us

And the point is that its a thread about syrians. So discussing other species is pointless...
Also, as I said, 6.5" wheels are definetly enough for russians (all species) and roborovskis, but chances are bigger would be ok too. I'm not sure about chinese as I don't own one, so I'm not commenting as I haven't done enough research on them.

Not trying to wind you up at all though (apart from on the Jandr bit in this post anyway ) just pointing out when your posts really, er... could use improvement...
And in this case, wondering why on earth you're discussing other species (which you don't know enough about) when its a thread about syrians. Its confused me so I asked. If you're offended by that... Er... I'd kinda prefer you answered rather than wasting time on being offended without much reason really...

[Leongti82]

Its annoying as the silent spinner is a good wheel but I wish they did an 8" model as that would be spot on for syrians.
I've been lucky as my syrian Milo is quite small for his size so he just gets away with the 6.5 model, although I've just bought the 20cm wonderland wooden wheel which I'm going to give to him and the spinner to the baby syrian I have.

Regarding the noise from the silent spinner, I found it you tape all the way around it where the join is it makes it much much quieter.