My first hamster

[Pebbles82]

He looks like a robo to me Mind boggling to think what his cage mate might have been if they were labelled wrongly. If he was the bigger of the two, he'd probably been territorial over the food - that's the problem with pairs, one can end up being territorial and the other one not get any food.

They are mostly all fluff though. When you get chance to weigh him that should show he's a robo as they are much lighter than other species of dwarf - although you can get overweight robos!

He looks perfectly normal to me - and they always look a bit chunky as so much fur.

Great progress! Our robo would never take food from my hand. He'd take it if pushed through the bars - sometimes.

[Ria P]

Our Monty is a large Robo. In fact, he's the biggest i've ever seen and i've fostered and rehomed a number of Robos. Like humans, hamsters come in different sizes.

Does yours have a sandbath? Robos love a sand area with a little hide in it.

Once you're able to handle your Robo, turn him over and have a look at his private parts. They are quite obvious in a large, male Robo.

Thing about Robos is that they don't move when you have a hold of them so doing a health check, sexing them or trimming nails is easier than with other dwarf hamsters.
I hold them with their back against my palm and my thumb across their chest to check their gender.

Always handle a Robo over something soft and enclosed in case he jumps off.

I like all species of hamsters but wouldn't want to be without a Robo. They have these incredibly cute faces.....

[flowerfairy]

Aw I love roborovskis. Mine likes to play invisible hamsters so I often dont see him for days at a time!

[harmless]

I get out of bed at first light, about 30 minutes before official sunrise, and that's when I get to interact with Bean. By sunrise, he's back in the burrow.

Not finding what I wanted in the stores, I ordered a sand bath and some sand from Amazon several days ago. It's still on the way, from the other side of the US.

Maybe they mislabeled Bean and his companion as Winter Whites because of his size and his light coloring. From what I've seen on the internet, the white eyebrows and the lack of a stripe down his back pretty much guarantee he's a robo. Fine with me. I thought a robo would be totally unresponsive to humans but Bean--well, he's responsive to sunflower seeds anyway.

This morning, he took a seed from a half inch/a centimeter or so into the palm of my hand. He also took a test bite of my finger. Powerful little jaws, he has. Apparently my jump wasn't big enough to scare him.