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Old 12-10-2020, 06:57 AM  
AmityvilleHams
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Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 4,545
Default Re: Rescue Hamster - really obese

Oxbow really isn't a good brand when it comes to hamster food. They may do very well for other pet foods but just not hamsters - timothy hay being a significant portion of the pellets makes it an inappropriate food from a nutrition perspective and pelleted diets as a whole are very unsuitable to the natural behaviors of hamsters who really need a proper mixed diet.

The proper diet in the US would be Higgins Vita Garden with added flax seed and Pure Bites freeze dried meat(avoid giving duck too often mostly due to fat content - shrimp, chicken, and turkey are some very good options for Pure Bites).

What wheel are you using at the moment? The Silent Spinners in particular are known to often not spin well or eventually stop spinning and any wheel of that sort of design has a safety flaw caused by the way the two pieces of plastic connect together for the wheel surface(essentially they can come apart and give a very serious injury risk - many do have a small gap regardless which is also dangerous since that can catch toenails and rip them out).

Comfort Wheels are a good pet store option as long as they're properly sized - the 8.5 inch version is appropriate for dwarf hamsters. The 9 inch Silent Runner is also a very good wheel but that has to be ordered online. I would strongly recommend against flying saucer type wheels though - they don't allow a natural running position unlike a properly sized upright wheel and as such do not replace a proper upright wheel!
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