Syrian weight

[cookietiger]

So I've had my female Syrian hamster for just over 11 weeks. She was apparently around 8/9 weeks old when in got her. So roughly 5 months old.... Woah that's longer than I remember.

Anyway! I weighed her today (for the first time because I didn't think it was necessary) and she weighed 124ish grams. Is the normal for a pet shop hamster? I don't know! Please help I don't want her to be dying or anything. Or at least I want to if she is.

[Shannonmcn]

Don't worry too much about the number on the scale, syrians can be anything from 100-300g with some *cough* Neptune *cough* pushing 350g so it's not so much the number that's important, it's changes in weight. Weigh her every week or so and keep an eye out for sudden losses in weight or changes in condition. If she's not bony when you pick her up, she's active, her ears are up and interested, her eyes are shiny and clear and her coat is smooth with no patches then it's safe to assume she's ok.

Edit: of course if you're worried about her being a bit thin you can feed her nice fatty treats like mealworms, the odd bit of cheese or shelled nuts. They're very active little animals so it's pretty hard to get them really fat :)

[cookietiger]

Ok! Thank you! I will make sure to weigh her now every week even though my sister thinks I'm a nutter. XD she loves running on her wheel so I suppose that might be one reason but she also seems slightly fussy with what she eats. (Once I handed her a green flaky piece of food and she picked it up, immediately went to the bars of her cage and chucked it out I tried giving it back but she repeated the process).

[Shannonmcn]

Wow, she sounds like fun! ;) some hams will always leave bits they don't like but if you think she's being very picky and it might be affecting the nutrition she's getting you can try changing her to a pellet type food rather than a muesli so you know she's getting everything she needs. I mix a museli (Burgess) with science selective biscuits?

[Bertiebobbins]

Our current ham is 11 weeks and 187g, he's been bred by a private breeder not from a rodent farm, at 11 weeks our pet shop/rodent farm ham weighed 79g. Both healthy and happy and good condition. So their weights can vary!

[Thin Lizzy]

I did laugh at the bit where your ham chucked the bit of green flaky food through the bars. She's going to be a little diva.