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Finding out about how hamsters live in the wild makes owning a pet hamster more rewarding and helps you provide better care for your pet. Providing you pet hamster with an environment that in some way is similar to what it would have in the wild is a sure way of making sure your pet will live a normal and healthy lifespan.
Wild hamsters usually make their homes in deserts using burrows beneath the ground where they spend the daylight hours secure from enemies and extremes of hot and cold. This is why you should provide your pet hamster with a sleeping chamber and lots of material to burrow in to make him feel at home. Hamsters in the wild look for food above ground usually once darkness falls in the evening and then emerge to forage in the early morning. Likewise, your pet hamster tends to nap in the daytime and then be active in the morning and again in the evening.
Food in the desert is often hard to find and the hamster has the sensible habit off laying up a food store at home. A hamster can carry a surprising amount of food in it's cheek pouches and is the way a wild hamster would transport food back to it's larder. When feeding your pet hamster, feed it more than it can eat in one sitting because it can satisfies it's hoarding habit and hide the rest of the food. Do not worry, your hamster will eat from his food store and will not waste any of it. Of course, in a desert water is in short supply but a hamster only needs a little of it to survive and drinks dew from the entrance of it's burrow in the morning. If fed plenty of fresh food in captivity, your hamster will only need a little water but always make sure clean water is in reach at all times.
A hamster uses it's keen sense of smell to sniff out food, find the way back to it's burrow and locate other hamsters etc. Washing your hands of any threatening smells, such as stroking your dog or cat, before picking up your pet hamster is a good idea. Eyesight is very poor for close-up objects but it has very sensitive hearing. A wild hamster can see danger at a distance but more importantly uses it's ears and nose to avoid predators. Because your hamster could easily be started by loud noises, put your hamster's cage in a quiet part of the house.
You pet hamster has all the instincts of his wild cousins but will become quite tame especially if handled a lot. This is a good thing from you 'point of view but could be a bad thing for the hamster. I mean that you should take care that he does not get loose in the house or even worse get outside. He will be less aware or dangers from dogs or cats especially if you happen to have one on the house because over time he will probably have become used to their scent. So have fun with your hamster but be a careful owner!
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Source by Robert Turberville
