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Old 02-04-2022, 03:51 AM  
Pebbles82
Hamster Antics
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 23,533
Default Re: Help regarding hamster supplements (Oxbow Joint and Urinary support) ...

I personally wouldn't give it. There are natural foods you can give to support healing and if your hamster is on antibiotics, those are quite strong and anything could interact with a conventional medicine. Sorry. It's also now debatable whether cranberries are good for uti's or not. All herbs are medicines so even though I'm a believer in some herbs being helpful medicinally, I'd never use them at the same time as conventional medicine.

Best thing is to support his diet so his body has the best support to heal naturally - which it sounds like the leg is doing already. If you can get some hemp seeds, they contain all the vitamins and minerals needed - hamsters like them and lick them up. Just a pinch on a separate little dish. Also linseeds (which they also like - which are good for fur, skin etc and probably bones too due to the natural oils. A pinch of those too. I used to use a jar lid as an extra dish and put the hemp seeds on one side and the linseeds on the other side (brown linseeds). They're not expensive.

Giving a blueberry as a treat once or twice a week (or as a substitute for a piece of veg) is healthy too. Full of antioxidants. That's fine for a Syrian but wouldn't do that for a dwarf hamster due to the sugars in fruit. If you keep blueberries in the fridge, they last for ages - 2 or 3 weeks usually.

Assume the antibiotics are a course and not permanently. When the course is finished, your hamster should no longer have a uti. But if she continues to appear to have urinary problems then dandelion can help - but you can buy dandelion roots which are woody and they can enjoy chewing. Bearing in mind though that a 2 year old hamster will start to drink and pee more as their kidneys start to not work as well as they get this old.

Hope that helps! I think there are too many ingredients in the Oxbow supplements and they're unnecessary - the timothy hay could cause more harm than good.
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