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Originally Posted by Lilafernim
I only thought plastikote is safe for them but from what I can tell the ones you linked are vegan. Does that mean paints that are vegan are also safe for hamsters?
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Vegan just means no animal products of any kind, so no - not all vegan paint is safe. Garlic for example is obviously vegan being a plant and fairly well known for being unsafe for a wide variety of animals including hamsters, but there are tons of things that would be considered vegan that aren't safe and can even be deadly. You don't want hamsters chewing and ingesting paint in general though as it isn't edible and can be harmful long term(plastics etc that are completely indigestible which can lead to blockages - they do
NOT break down, same reason we never want hamsters chewing plastic houses etc). You can make edible paints and dyes technically using safe food items, but premade paints and such aren't the same.
Human food grade food dye is another potential option for just adding color to things. It's not ideal(due to issues with synthetic dyes in general), but you'd at least be eliminating the very dangerous plastics and such which you really shouldn't be using on anything meant for chewing or that gets chewed from premade paints.