How to Keep a Happy Hamster

Hamsters are cute, everybody know that and Hamsters make great pets for children and adults.
Cleaning your hamster's cage is essential to raising a healthy critter, and it isn't as complicated as you think.
Just follow these few simple steps.

1. Hamsters love their wheel, but use one that is solid, not the kind with wire rungs.
They love to go fast, but they sometimes trip and can fall between the rungs and hurt their leg.

2.Keep their area AS CLEAN AS POSSIBLE- change the shavings in their 'potty corner' every day, but only clean their cage once a week.
This is the most important. Hamsters get sick extremely easily and it is hard to cure.

3.Clean your hamster's cage once a week- cleaning more often will eliminate the odors a hamster releases that tells him where to relieve himself, sleep or eat.
Less often will be detrimental to the natural cleaning habits of your hamster.

4.Make sure they get plenty of play time so they can get used to you.

5.Getting to the hamsters height will ensure it wont be scared of you.
If you approach it from the top they may get scared and run away as they think you are a predator.

6.Never raise your voice around the hamster as they have very sensitive hearing and will hear you perfectly even if you whisper.

Tips On Selecting Hamster Cage

Choosing a suitable cage for your hamster(s) should be one of the most important decisions for each hamster owner. Bare in mind that the cage is like house same as for us human. All of us want to live in a safe, comfortable and clean home. Your hamster(s) should have the same rights and it is your responsibility to provide them with suitable living place to keep them happy, active and healthy.

There are several factors to consider when selecting hamster cages:-

Cage Size
The cage should have ample room for the hamster to do their favorite activity.. exercise!. For a solitary Syrian hamster, the cage should at least able to fit an exercise wheel and some extra space to live and doing other things. A small box that could act as a bedroom also recommended as the hamster usually prefers to have privacy when goes to sleep.

Dwarf hamsters should need a bigger space as we need to take into consideration that dwarf hamsters prefer to live in groups. So we need a cage that at least could cater for two of them plus spaces for them to play and sleep.

If you are planning to allow your hamster to breed, a bigger cage will be needed. Provide enough room for the hamsters to have their private spaces especially for a pregnant or nursing mother. There are cases when the mother attacks her companions due to overly protective reaction to their litters or maybe due to stress of feeling too crowded. Stress could also cause the mother to eat their litters.

Safety
Barred cages are commonly used as a hamster cage. For this type of cage, make sure the bars are close enough so that the hamsters couldn't slip through. This problem commonly occurs to dwarf hamsters or baby hamsters due to their small body size.

If you have other types of pets such as cats or dogs in your house, choose other types of cages such as aquarium or plastic modular cages rather than barred cages to prevent any unwanted circumstances.

Easy to clean
Choose a cage that will not give you headaches to clean up. A tedious cleaning job could make some people bored and might end up doing improper cleaning or even didn't do the cleaning job regularly enough.

Expandability

Some cages are designed to allow future expansion possible. Usually these types of cages are quite expensive. A simple cage could be expandable up to being just like a castle for hamsters. Unless you can afford it, this feature is rather optional.

Source: http://www.myhammie.com/hamster-cages.php