a lot of new hamster owners end up making a lot of common mistakes due to
either impulse buying a hamster from a pet store or receiving a hamster as a
present because then they either get knowledge from the pet store employee or
their friend or whoever gave them the hamster and a lot of the times the
information they've received is actually incorrect or outdated. One of the most
commonly made hamster care mistakes is having too small of a hamster cage when
you walk into the pet store and you go into the hamster aisle 10 out of 10
times every single one of those cages made for hamsters is going to be too
small which can be quite confusing because why would a pet store sell cages
for hamsters if they're too small for them well it's because most of these
companies making hamster cages are not caring about the hamsters well-being
they will make these cages super cute and fun colored and have a lot of extras
like added lights and things so that people just want to buy them for their
kids kind of as toys almost they don't really
care about the hamsters well-being all species of hamster require a bare
minimum of 450 square inches of floor space even that I find
is quite small for a hamster even though hamsters are these itty bitty creatures
they actually need a lot of space and a lot of people don't know that or don't
quite understand it because they do think that just because they're small
they deserve to live in a small cage for some odd reason which that's so far from
the truth if you would like to learn about more suitable hamster cages or
where to get them, what types to buy I have a ton of videos on hamster cage
size I will leave them all linked in the description bar
the next commonly made hamster care mistake is not giving enough bedding to
your hamster a lot of people will just put in enough bedding to barely cover
the base of the cage and partly the cages are to blame for this if you are
buying those tiny cages from the pet store a lot of their bases are like
three inches tall so that only gives you three inches
worth of bedding. Hamsters are burrowers they really need to be able to
burrow down deep it is just something they do, for a hamster I would recommend
having a section of the cage at least have at least a bare minimum of six
inches of substrate personally 10 inches or more as a lot better gives them more
room to burrow down the next care mistake people tend to make is using
unsafe hamster products yes those exist just because something is labeled safe
for hamsters doesn't mean it is actually safe for hamsters a lot of the times
people end up buying these products because a pet store employee will
recommend them when they actually end up being very very dangerous things such as
wire and mesh wheels which can cause injuries to limbs as well as bumblefoot
cotton fluff nesting which can get wrapped around your hamsters teeth it
can cut off circulation to their limbs and if ingested it can cause
blockages as well as pine and cedar shavings which can cause upper
respiratory infections if used. another common mistake made is bathing your
hamster in water. A hamster should never be bathed in water unless advised to
do so by a vet when you bathe a hamster in water with the soap and the water you
are really wrecking the oils in their coats as well as if they don't get
properly dried off they can go into shock and die hamsters are like cats
they groom themselves all the time to keep their coats nice and kept up so
they really don't need to be bathed if you would like to help your hamster
bathe then you can actually give them a sand bath which I have a whole video on
and I'll also leave that linked in the description bar. the next mistake people
seem to make is housing a male and female hamster together
you should never house a male and female hamster under any circumstances together
hamsters in general actually are fairly solitary and they should be just housed
by themselves it seems to be that there's a lot of people who think if you
have a brother and sister hamster that they're not going to want to breed but
hamsters and all animals actually they don't have the same morals
humans do therefore they're gonna breed no matter what because they're male and
female and that's what they're supposed to do so please don't be housing
hamsters together or male and female together at all
and the last commonly made mistake is not having a vet fund for your hamster
just like any other pet a hamster deserves to get the vet care it needs
when it needs it if your hamster is sick it needs to see a vet you can't just let
them sit there and suffer because some reason people think they're disposable
pets you can just buy a new one it's still a living breathing creature with
value to its life it still needs to see a vet to be taken care of it's not a
disposable toy this is one of the reasons I actually don't recommend
hamsters for children because a lot of the times parents are unwilling to take
a hamster to a vet because it's just a hamster and then children usually don't
have jobs so it's very hard for them to earn any money to take them to the vet
therefore the hamster ends up getting sick and has to suffer and then ends up
dying this is why I recommend you have a vet fund, you can save a couple of
dollars every month and put that away for your vet fund or you can even get
pet insurance don't forget that mistakes are okay to make as long as you change
them everybody makes mistakes it's whether or not we decide to take action
and we change how we do things that kind of determines the difference between a
good pet owner and a bad pet owner, a bad pet owner will find out they're making
mistakes and they will refuse to change how they care for their pet so yeah guys
I hope this video has helped any new hamster owners or maybe hamster owners
that just haven't researched enough so yeah thank you for watching bye