let's talk about herbs so you may have HERB me talk
I'll go home
so you may have heard me talk about herbs once or twice in my videos
because I just I'm a little obsessed with them now when we're talking about
herbs we are talking about the dried herbs as well as dried flowers and you
might be thinking well what does a hamster get out of herbs? what does it
do for them? is it necessary for them? and I wouldn't exactly say that you need to
feed dried herbs and flowers if it's just not available to you you can't get
a hold of any it's not going to be the end of the world but dried herbs and
flowers do have a lot of good properties to them for example there are certain
herbs that can do certain things and help with certain issues as well as a
lot of them have good antioxidants, vitamins, minerals so it doesn't really
hurt to be feeding them as well as herbs do make good for foraging in the wild
hamsters are going to come across flowers, herbs, different plants they are
going to take them back they are going to eat them so it does help with
foraging and getting that natural instinct in your hamster as well as
herbs and dried flowers just they smell really good so I find if you're adding
them into your hamsters cage it's a natural good smelling thing that can
maybe help your hamsters cage to smell a bit better there isn't a ton of research
out there with hamsters and dried herbs and flowers there is only a short kind
of list that I know of of herbs that are a hundred percent safe for hamsters if
you ever come across a herb and you're not sure if it is safe or not for your
hamster avoid feeding it until you can find out that it is safe for them since
there isn't a whole bunch of research on herbs and dried flowers that's why I'm
only going to cover which ones I know of are safe I'm not going to go through
which are unsafe because there could be a whole pile I'm just not sure so I'm
just going to mention the ones I do know are safe and anything that's not
mentioned today you might need to do more research into it or just avoid it
altogether so the herbs and dried flowers that are safe for hamsters would
include rosebuds, calendula petals, corn flowers
chamomile, sunflower petals, hibiscus flowers
echinacea, parsley stalks, raspberry leaves, nettle leaves, dandelion leaves
dill, blackberry leaves, basil, plantain, birch leaves, blueberry leaves and
peppermint leaves now peppermint leaves are one of the more debated herbs
whether or not it is safe or not you 100% do not have to feed peppermint
leaves if you do not feel they are safe but they have had some positive effects
on rodents so it is said that peppermint leaves can actually help support stomach
and intestinal issues, it promotes blood circulation as well as it helps
stimulate bile secretions the concern that a lot of people have with the
peppermint leaves is the amount being fed if it is being fed regularly it has
been found to cause brain damage but there hasn't been too much looked into
it whether how that affects the hamsters a lifespan overall and I personally
would say that you would have to be feeding this quite a bit for something
to ever really affect your hamster just like a lot of things if you're feeding
too much of anything it can always be bad even good things you can overdose on
drinking water so it's kind of the balance of if you're not feeding it
regularly there's not likely of a chance of it affecting your hamster but if
you're someone who's always feeding it there is a possibility and of course if
you don't like hearing these risks at all you don't have to feed it at all
so how often should you feed dried herbs and flowers well for me personally I
like to do it just once a week there really is no
research on whether or not how often you should feed herbs or anything like that
so I personally just go with once a week I take handful and I sprinkle it
throughout the enclosure so that it gives bumble a chance to forage and find
the herbs that she likes. Bumble generally does eat almost all of the
herbs some hamsters don't like herbs and flowers at all some will only like
certain ones so it kind of just helps to find what your hamster likes best but
keep in mind that if your hamster doesn't eat a dried herb it's not going
to go bad in the enclosure it's not going to rot or anything because it is
just a dried piece it's not wet or it's not going to rot or anything like that
so you really don't have to worry too much if they don't end up eating any of
the ones you've sprinkled in so where can you get dried herbs for some reason
in Canada in the US it is a lot harder for us to find dried herbs and flowers
we can't just walk into the pet store and have like a shelf full of them I
guess there's just not a big enough market here for them but I do know in
the UK at pets at home they do have a couple of brands that do sell their own
dried herbs and flowers like the Rosewood brand you just want to make
sure that the ingredients have nothing you're unsure about make sure they're
all safe and most of the Rosewood ones I'm fairly certain are safe for hamsters
you can also get dried herbs and dried flowers online at little shops I know
there's actually quite a few and I'll make sure to link them down below you
can find one that's located in your area this is the star West botanicals they
have a lot of dried herbs and flowers available
as well as there are just actual pet brands that sell dried herbs and flowers
I think there's the hay experts who have a variety of dried herbs and flowers
that you can purchase as well so a hundred percent I'm going to leave a
bunch of links in the description bar so you guys can go check them out one last
question I want to answer is I've had a couple of people ask me can you just use
teabag herbs like you just take a teabag cut it up
and use that I personally really wouldn't recommend using teabag herbs
simply because a lot of the time they're grinded really really tiny and it's
better if you're going to have bigger pieces of herbs for a hamster to
actually forage for and be able to grab and eat if they're like grinded so small
there's going to be a very hard chance that your hamsters not gonna actually
end up getting any or eating any of it as well as teas tend to do like mixes so
I personally would just avoid using tea herbs so I hope you guys have enjoyed
this video about herbs and dried flowers I love them so much they smell so good
and a lot of hamsters do enjoy them yeah I hope this video can explain a little
bit more because I do find I talk about them quite a bit so I hope you guys have
enjoyed this video bye
there have been-
hi
why is every video
that you decide that you are going to be the star