Hm....

[conuly]

Lizziey, this site says it's okay for hamsters to have occasional hard boiled eggs, eating yeast, and the all important fish liver oil. Oh, and some doggy biscuits now and again, which sounds like a good idea, and cheap, if I could trust pet food companies....

Both that site and this one mention meal worms. This one also mentions alfalfa. But that's their product, so I'm not surprised.

This site says you should have blocks of wood, branches, etc. for climbing, and mentions dried fruit (maybe raisins) as food....

I don't know enough about hamsters. Clearly. And Lizziey's hamster could do with more variety in the diet (apparently) and more interesting surroundings. Branches I can get, though, that'll be easy. Right?

Okay, I know you people, some of you know about rodents in general and/or hamsters in specific. Hey, you can all spell the word, and that's really good enough for me. HELP!

Edit: Wikipedia suggests, among other things, a sand bath. It also recommends having hay at all times, for both food and nesting, and says hamsters should not have very many sweet fruits, and emphasises the importance of a salt stone. Wikipedia puts a lot of thought into the care of the common hamster. IF wikipedia is correct, I have a shopping list to make out.

Comments

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

You might also want to look into making your own hamster food.

Commercially available foods are terrible.

When I belonged to Hamster House there were a few people who made their own hammie food.

I make my own rat food, rather than buy stuff. It's made from barley pearls, soft wheat berries, rolled oats, rolled rye, rolled spelt, Total flakes, puffed rice, puffed wheat, millet, puffed corn, dried pasta, banana chips & some other stuff. It's all available in bulk at the health food store.

Our hamsters ate this, as well. They liked it. If you can't find a recipe from the people at Hamster House, you can adapt Suebee's rat food mix to better suit your hamster:

http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html