Some new-hamster-mom-concerns!

Hello!
Bobi has been with us for about 3 months now and has gained quite a lot of weight, about 10-12 grams depending on the scale, which we know is a lot. We are taking her to the vet for a stye and they are treating her and obviously weighing her and scolding us a bit. The thing is that the exotic vet (and all the vets in Spain, I think) recommend feeding hamsters with pellets, in fact we used to give her one that had a mixture of pellets and seeds and they told us that it should only be pellets (like these: https://www.beaphar.co.uk/product/18417-beaphar-care-food-for-dwarf-hamsters) so that she wouldn't choose to eat the seeds (which are more fattening). We said yes, but at home what we give her is the Rodipet hybrid junior seed mix because we know that it makes sense for her to eat seeds. She also has sprays in her cage for enrichment such as flax, sudan grass (brown and black), millet and amaranth.
We think she gained a lot of weight because we were feeding her quite a lot of sunflower seeds and mealworms which we thought were not so fattening but the vet told us they were, as well as wallnuts, so the latter we have totally eliminated from the diet as well as fruit (although the vet said there was no problem). As for vegetables, lately he only eats broccoli and cucumber.

Rodipet recommends giving each hamster a daily spoonful of his food (measured in its spoon included) but we are giving her less because of the overweight issue, half or less, besides the only treats we give her are vegetables. But at the same time we also think that she stores a lot of seeds in her multichamber and it doesn't make much sense that there are some days that we haven't given her anything if she has so much stored, as well as the sprays, and she can eat them whenever she wants.

She runs quite a lot on her wheel and we do playpen time where she also runs and exercises. Any other recommendations? We want to get her back to 36-38 grams.
Thank you!
 
Do you have a photo of her? She might not be overweight if she's a large dwarf hamster. But if the vet thinks she is then perhaps she is.

I would stick to using the Rodipet dwarf hybrid mix and still give her a scoop each day. And still give the daily veg. Sunflower seeds are one of the most fattening things really, but don't pick them out of the food mix, I'd just stop giving them as treats. It could take time for her weight to gradually reduce though. I think pumpkin seeds aren't that high calorie (sunflower seeds are very high calorie). You can get the white ones with the shells on (the green pumpkin seed is inside the white shell). That will keep her occupied cracking the shells open and they love doing that.

If she has a load of sunflower seeds in her hoard then it might take some time to gradually reduce, but I wouldn't worry too much, and just stick to her daily mix and veg, and the occasional pumpkin seed. I would recommend not giving fruit due to the sugars.
 
Maz said:
Do you have a photo of her? She might not be overweight if she's a large dwarf hamster. But if the vet thinks she is then perhaps she is.

I would stick to using the Rodipet dwarf hybrid mix and still give her a scoop each day. And still give the daily veg. Sunflower seeds are one of the most fattening things really, but don't pick them out of the food mix, I'd just stop giving them as treats. It could take time for her weight to gradually reduce though. I think pumpkin seeds aren't that high calorie (sunflower seeds are very high calorie). You can get the white ones with the shells on (the green pumpkin seed is inside the white shell). That will keep her occupied cracking the shells open and they love doing that.

If she has a load of sunflower seeds in her hoard then it might take some time to gradually reduce, but I wouldn't worry too much, and just stick to her daily mix and veg, and the occasional pumpkin seed. I would recommend not giving fruit due to the sugars.
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She doesn’t have sunflower seeds hoarded because she eats them very fast when we give her lol. She only hoards the Rodipet seeds.

This pic is from this morning.02E4F632-D4B8-4323-A610-BED60461CDA9.jpeg
 
The Rodipet food mix is forming her nutritional balance so it's fine if she eats that - just cut back on the treats/sunflower seeds. And maybe don't replace the flax sprays too often.

She looks fine to me on that photo but it's hard to tell from that angle. If she's still very young then her weight will increase gradually anyway until she's fully grown - that can carry on until they're 6 to 9 months sometimes. They are also supposed to be quite rounded. So I wouldn't put her on a diet as such - it's important she gets enough protein and nutrition in her first year. Just cut back on the sunflower seed treats.
 
Maz said:
The Rodipet food mix is forming her nutritional balance so it's fine if she eats that - just cut back on the treats/sunflower seeds. And maybe don't replace the flax sprays too often.

She looks fine to me on that photo but it's hard to tell from that angle. If she's still very young then her weight will increase gradually anyway until she's fully grown - that can carry on until they're 6 to 9 months sometimes. They are also supposed to be quite rounded. So I wouldn't put her on a diet as such - it's important she gets enough protein and nutrition in her first year. Just cut back on the sunflower seed treats.
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😱 The vet told us in July she’s fully grown 🙈 We are going to give her just the Rodipet mix and using vegetables and food such as boiled eggs as a treat, thanks 😊
 
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You say you've had her about 3 months. Do you know how old she was when you got her? Still a baby about 6 weeks old? Although they have done a lot of their growing by 5.5 months (which she might be now) they can still keep growing for a bit longer until full adult weight :-)
 
Maz said:
You say you've had her about 3 months. Do you know how old she was when you got her? Still a baby about 6 weeks old? Although they have done a lot of their growing by 5.5 months (which she might be now) they can still keep growing for a bit longer until full adult weight :-)
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The person who got her before is told us she was born on April or May, we took her a the end of June😊
 
So she was just a baby. She's probably still growing a bit and it's normal to keep gaining a bit of weight. She should stabilise in the next couple of months. She doesn't look overweight to me.
 
Hey I would like to ask something :)
We give our hammy the Hybrid food mix from Rodipet and she has a loooot of it stored in her multichamber, so we wonder if we have to give her a spoon of food each day if she has tons of food in her enclosure. We believe she's a bit chubby (she's between 42-44 grams) and we don't want to be giving her too much food! (She gets occasionaly -maybe every 2-3 days- some mealworm as a treat, her sprays, and veggies such as broccoli and cucumber, of course not everything at the same moment, every 2-3 days we change the treat and sprays get removed every 2 weeks or so).
Thanks!
 
Hi. Do you have a photo of her? :-) 42-44 grammes sounds quite average for a dwarf hamster and it's normal for them to look quite round. But yes it's best to put food out every day because they have a routine of foraging, pouching and hoarding every day. Then they tend to eat from their hoards. The hoards can get quite large. I tend to "prune" the hoard from underneath (leaving the newer food on top) every few months, when doing a part substrate change. It's best to leave some of the hoard behind or they get quite anxious. But you won't be giving her too much - she will eat what she needs. It's a very healthy hamster mix she's having as well. A rounded teaspoonful a day is about right. Although the rodipet food comes with a scoop doesn't it? For the right portion.

It might seem like a waste of food but it's what keeps them happy :-)

Do you feed any other treats as well?
 
Maz said:
Hi. Do you have a photo of her? :-) 42-44 grammes sounds quite average for a dwarf hamster and it's normal for them to look quite round. But yes it's best to put food out every day because they have a routine of foraging, pouching and hoarding every day. Then they tend to eat from their hoards. The hoards can get quite large. I tend to "prune" the hoard from underneath (leaving the newer food on top) every few months, when doing a part substrate change. It's best to leave some of the hoard behind or they get quite anxious. But you won't be giving her too much - she will eat what she needs. It's a very healthy hamster mix she's having as well. A rounded teaspoonful a day is about right. Although the rodipet food comes with a scoop doesn't it? For the right portion.

It might seem like a waste of food but it's what keeps them happy :-)

Do you feed any other treats as well?
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I think she looks fatter in pictures than in the reality hahaha and now I can't attach a picture because I'm typing from a computer and my pictures of her are in my phone :( And yes, she gets everyday the scoop that comes in the rodipet food. And as a treats we give her daily a piece of any of this snacks (we change everyday so she doesn't get the same): broccoli, cucumber, walnuts, sunflower seeds, boiled egg or mealworm (and I have to admit that some days that we are very tired and she doesn't show up before we go to bed we don't "wait" for her to give her treats (because we prefer to give them from our hand than to leave them in the cage, we believe that this way they will always relate us to the food and ‘love’ us more).


On the other hand, lately I feel that it is difficult to locate the dirty bedding, our hamster urinates a lot on the wheel, occasionally we also find the litter box dirty, but lately we only find the wheel dirty with urine. We think that she has to urinate somewhere in the cage and we are not finding it and it makes me feel a bit overwhelmed. Especially if she is urinating in her bed, I would hate to have to remove everything (including the paper she uses for her nest, it looks so cute...).
And we don't want to start emptying the bedding left and right with what that means for her in terms of stress.
 
To be honest - if you can’t smell it, I wouldn’t worry. It was the same when I had my last Robo. After 2 to 3 months I did a 1/3 substrate change at his house end and found he had a little pee corner underground well away from his food and hoard. It was all incredibly neat. And the pee had mostly evaporated 😊
 
Maz said:
To be honest - if you can’t smell it, I wouldn’t worry. It was the same when I had my last Robo. After 2 to 3 months I did a 1/3 substrate change at his house end and found he had a little pee corner underground well away from his food and hoard. It was all incredibly neat. And the pee had mostly evaporated 😊
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This is what I think... that its evaporated, I have a very good smell sense and I look ridiculous putting my noise inside the bedding trying to smell something but I don't hahahaha I will look more carefully in the corners underground. If I spend one month more without changing substrate (because to me its clean), should I start changing anyways bit by bit by zones?
 
I think that sounds a good idea. Maybe do a one third substrate change (ie divide the cage into third zones) at the sleeping end as the pee is more likely to be there. But keep back some of the old substrate that’s clean and replace that bit on top so it smells familiar.

Once I found my Robo did everything at one end of the cage I didn’t really do the other thirds very often as they were clean and dry.

He’d sometimes move his nesting area after a clean at that end but he’d move back again.
 
How is Bobi doing? :-) If you want you could start a personal/diary thread for Bobi in the Russian dwarf hamster section. It's a thread where people post updates, photos and videos so others can interact, share the antics and follow :-) The Russian dwarf hamster section is here

www.thehamsterforum.com

Russian Dwarf Hamsters

www.thehamsterforum.com www.thehamsterforum.com
 
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