Djungarian Hamster Weight

[thecobra2]

Hello. I have a 9 month old male Djungarian hamster and I am a bit worried about his weight. I weighed him last night and he was 81g. This was my first time to weigh him. Is this a normal weight? After reading some information online this seemed to be quite heavy. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

[cypher]

81g is quite big but I have had them around that weight, they do vary a lot in size so I wouldn’t worry too much.
Hamsters don’t usually get overweight as long as they have a good diet, what are you feeding? Not too many extra treats especially those that are very high in fat & (you may know) it’s important to avoid sugars as they are prone to diabetes.
Rather than worry about your ham eating too much it’s important to encourage activity, a good size wheel (20cm is about right) a large enough cage with plenty of enrichment, scatter feeding to encourage natural behaviour & out of cage time with lots to explore.

[thecobra2]

Thank you for the reply He has quite a large cage. He is living in two large plastic containers which are connected together through a smaller Habitrail cage with tubes. His cage is around 160cm x 40cm large. He is quite active but use his wheel much but he after travels from cage to cage.. I have been taking all the sunflower seeds out of his food mix and I have been giving them as a daily treat. I was giving him a small yogurt treat almost daily. I mixed it with a liquid vitamin for him. I think that might be the reason he got bigger.

[thecobra2]

What is a good weight range for these types of hamsters?

[cypher]

Having treats like yogurt drops which are high in both sugar & fat could certainly be a cause of too much weight gain, it’s best to avoid anything like & don’t give anything with sugar, natural treats are the best thing, giving seeds from the mix is a good idea but you can give a few extras too, just in moderation.
I wouldn’t give your hamster vitamin drops, it’s far more important to give a good hamster mix plus extras like fresh veg daily, most commercial mixes already have added vitamins & by giving a supplement your ham could be getting too much of some things which will be bad for his health.
It’s really hard to give a weight range, it seems to vary a bit from country to country I’ve notices but I would say they can be anything from around 40-80g although any average is maybe around closer to 65g.
I wouldn’t worry too much about weight, it is a good idea to weight them to keep an eye out for any sudden changes that may be health related but it’s better to go by general condition, active, shiny coat, bright eyes & eating normally etc than concentrate on weight too much.

[thecobra2]

Alright. I have already taken the yogurt treats out of his diet and will stop giving him the vitamin drops. This is very useful information. I am happy that I found this forum. My hamster does seem active and healthy so I will continue to focus on that. Thank you for the help.