How many times a day should a hamster be fed?

Inexperienced owners often wonder how many times a day a hamster should be fed. If everything is relatively clear with cats and dogs, then here we are talking about how to organize the food of a rodent prone to hiding places and supplies.

Healthy digestion is the basis of longevity for these animals, so attention should be paid not only to the composition of the diet, but also to the organization of the feeding regimen. Hamsters are nocturnal, and during the day they sleep almost all the time. This feature must be taken into account in order to decide how many times you can feed the hamster.

Multiplicity of feeding

It’s fun to watch the meal of the animal, but the best is a single evening feeding when the animal is active. Another acceptable option is feeding in the evening and early morning hours, before the daytime sleep of the animal. The evening portion should be significantly larger than the morning one.

Having decided on a schedule that is convenient for himself, it is better for the owner to stick to one feeding time. With amazing accuracy, the animal will wait for dinner at the appointed time. This stability is beneficial for the rodent’s digestion.

Due to the high metabolic rate, the hamster absolutely cannot stand a hunger strike. It is difficult to answer unequivocally how many times a day a hamster should eat.

Although the main meal occurs at night, the animals like to wake up during the day to have a snack. Therefore, access to feed should be almost around the clock.

When it comes to how often you need to feed your hamster, it’s important not to overdo it. It is impossible to give food more than twice a day: this will disturb the sleep of the animal. Juicy and protein foods can go bad if your hamster doesn’t eat them right away. For the same reason, stocks are regularly audited, removing spoiled products.

Amount of food

How much food a hamster needs per day depends on many factors:

• physical activity;
• age (young animals eat much more);
• physiological state (pregnancy, lactation);
• room temperature.

The average rodent eats per day the amount of food equal to 70% of body weight.

Syrian hamster weighing 140-150 g should receive about 100 g of food.

Such accuracy of calculations is not used in practice, and the owner can only roughly say how much a hamster eats per day.

The Djungarian hamster or Campbell is so small that it seems to the owners: and they eat “at a glance”.

It’s a big mistake to overfeed your pet. Hamsters get fat easily.

From the outside it may look cute, but the animal itself is threatened with serious health problems and shortens life. If the jungarik has already received a tablespoon of dry food, and the feeder is instantly empty, you should not fill it again. The pet just hid the food in the cage.

Conclusion

The owner needs to think not only about how often to feed the hamster. For the health of the pet, water and food are changed on time, they do not allow obesity and follow the recommendations regarding prohibited and permitted foods. It is better to think over the diet of the animal even before buying, in order to avoid health problems caused by a lack of information about the nutrition of hamsters.