How To Take Care of a Winter White Hamster?

Many families in the United States and worldwide believe hamsters to be excellent pets, with good reasons. Hamsters are gorgeous pets and low-maintenance companions that come in various breeds, including beautiful winter white hamsters. However, they still require considerable care, and knowing some basic guidelines will help you keep your pet healthy and happy.

Here’s how to take care of a winter white hamster:

1. Feed your winter white hamster with a balanced diet.
2. Keep your hamster in a suitable cage.
3. Provide entertainment for your winter white hamster.
4. Take the hamster to the vet for regular checks.
5. Don’t groom your winter white hamster.

These essential tips are simple but will go a long way in ensuring your pet is happy and comfortable throughout its lifetime with you. Keep reading as I’ll discuss how to care for your winter white hamster and the financial costs of owning one.

1. Feed Your Winter White Hamster With a Balanced Diet

Winter white hamsters are omnivores, like other rodents and hamsters. Therefore, most foods, including meat, insects, fruits, and vegetables, can benefit them.

Generally, hamsters aren’t fussy eaters, although you must provide them with food that includes all the nutrients they need.

Ensure your winter white hamster’s diet is diverse enough to keep it happy—remember, even you’d get tired of eating pizza every day!

Pellets make up a large part (roughly 80 to 90%) of an ideal diet for a winter white hamster. You may also feed your hamster a range of fresh fruits, veggies, cereals, nuts, and seeds.

Some people choose to give their winter white hamsters seed mixtures rather than pellets. These mixtures are usually a mix of walnuts, sunflower seeds, and peanuts. However, this is a bad idea because pellets are significantly more nutritious than a diet of grains.

Furthermore, when you offer hamsters a seed mix, they’re usually choosy, eating just their preferred seeds and ignoring the rest. Therefore, go for a pellet-rich diet to ensure your furry friend is well fed.

Nevertheless, there are some safer dietary options. These include cashews, cucumbers, boiled eggs, broccoli, oats, and cooked plain chicken.

Fruits have a lot of sugar, and it is an excellent idea to serve them to hamsters in moderation. It’s best to save apples and grapes for treats or special occasions.

Buy High-Quality Hamster Food Online

You can get high-quality feed from several pet stores in all states of the United States, be it in Illinois or California. But I’d advise you to go for meals like the Kaytee Forti-Diet Pro Health Hamster and Gerbil Food from Amazon.com. This hamster food offers probiotics and prebiotics to support your hamster’s digestive system. It’s also rich in antioxidants.

The Oxbow Essentials Hamster and Gerbil Food (also available on Amazon.com) is also a good option. It’s especially perfect for picky eaters. This hamster food will provide your hamster with the protein, carbohydrates, and antioxidants it needs to support its active lifestyle.

Get Your Hamster an Ergonomic Food Dish

Of course, your pet will need a food dish. I recommend using the Living World Ergonomic Food Dish (available on Amazon.com). This ergonomic dish is an excellent choice, designed to help your hamster eat without turning over.

Don’t forget to provide your winter white hamster with clean water every day!

Read Why Is My Hamster Not Eating?

2. Keep Your Hamster in a Suitable Cage

Your hamster will spend most of its life in a cage, so the cage must be as large and comfortable as possible.

As a general guideline, provide your hamster an environment as big as you can afford and accommodate in your home. This cage will be home and the principal workout area for your hamster.

Winter White hamsters may grow 3 to 4 inches (7 to 10 centimeters) long and can slip into tiny areas. However, they need plenty of room to play. As a result, I recommend the minimum cage size to be 24 x 12 inches (61 x 30 centimeters).

However, this is a minimum cage size, and a larger cage is usually preferable, so get a larger one if you have the space and budget for it. Also, ensure the enclosures are appropriately sized if you’re keeping multiple hamsters in the same cage.

You can use a wire or glass cage for your winter white hamster, although each cage type has pros and cons. If you choose a wire cage, you’ll have to consider the spacing issue.

Hamsters are notorious for crawling through the holes in wire cages. That said, you’ll want mesh or spacing that’s at least as small as your hamster.

Some people opt for a glass tank to eliminate this problem. But if you choose this tank type, you’ll have to address ventilation problems and the health risks that come with it.

I wouldn’t advise you to choose this option unless you’re willing to set up a proper air circulation system for your hamster.

Go for a wire cage instead, but ensure the bar spacing in the enclosure is no more than a quarter-inch (0.6 centimeters) wide.

The MidWest Homes for Pets Critterville Arcade Hamster Home from Amazon.com is an excellent choice for your winter white hamster. It has fun accessories that’ll keep your hamster entertained, such as an exercise wheel, food bowl, water bottle, and tubes.

Read Why Is My Hamster Biting the Cage

3. Provide Entertainment for Your Winter White Hamster

Your hamster needs a home and not just a fancy cage. Therefore, you must provide it with bedding, chew toys, an exercise wheel, and other necessities. These items don’t need to be very expensive but are enough to keep your hamster mentally stimulated.

Provide your winter white hamster with an environment where it can maintain a healthy level of physical exercise. You can also prevent issues like obesity if you provide your hamster with a cage large enough to fit an exercise wheel.

I recommend purchasing the Niteangel Super-Silent Exercise Wheels from Amazon.com for your pet hamster. This transparent and minimalistic wheel is quiet, so your hamster’s night running won’t wake you up.

Let Your Winter White Hamster Run in an Exercise Ball

Some pet owners like letting their hamsters out of the cage. Fortunately, you may also provide exercise for your winter white hamster outside of the enclosure using an exercise ball. This ball helps your hamster to move around in most environments safely.

Check out the Fediya Hamster Exercise Ball (from Amazon.com). It’s eco-friendly, durable, toxic-free, and comes in a few colors. With this cute ball, your hamster can exercise outside of its cage once in a while. But always keep an eye on your pet to ensure it doesn’t hurt itself.

Give Your Winter White Hamster Wooden Chew Toys

In addition to exercising, you should provide your winter white with wooden chew toys. Chew toys will keep your hamster occupied throughout the day while encouraging healthy chewing.

Chew toys like the Wild Harvest P-84127 Colored Wood Chews (available on Amazon.com) allow your hamster to engage in interactive play and chewing pleasure. These chews taste like fruits—and hamsters love fruits! They’ll also keep your hamster’s teeth trimmed and strong.

Provide Your Hamster With Bedding It Can Burrow Into

Your hamster needs bedding in its cage for comfort and burrowing reasons. Decent bedding will also assist in keeping the pen odor-free.

I recommend checking out the Kaytee Clean & Cozy Small Pet Bedding (available on Amazon.com). This 99.9% dust-free bedding comes in various sizes and can absorb liquid six times its weight.

Alternatively, you can use shredded paper as bedding. Perfumed bedding is unsuitable because the material contains certain oils that are hazardous to hamsters. Pine and cider beddings are also not suitable.

Read How To Play With a Hamster

4. Take the Hamster to the Vet for Regular Checks

Winter white hamsters are a hardy breed that seldom gets sick. However, all hamsters are susceptible to wet tails, abscesses, respiratory problems, skin issues, and enlarged teeth.

Also, their tiny stature and temperament make them particularly prone to damage from falls and cage mate squabbles.

Loss of appetite, hair loss, lethargy, hiding, excessive scratching, respiratory distress, and irregular droppings are all possible indications and symptoms of sickness. I suggest you keep your hamster in a warm and quiet place if it looks unwell or wounded before calling your veterinarian.

Unfortunately, not all veterinarians are capable of caring for hamsters. So, before you get one as a pet, be sure there’s a hamster vet in the area who can help you.

Good hygiene practices will help keep your pet in good health. Clean your hamster’s cage and beddings as often as possible.

Ensure you regularly remove dirty bedding and clean frequent pee spots in the enclosure. Cleaning will assist in decreasing smells and reducing ammonia accumulation.

Remember to take out leftover food regularly. You should also replace filthy bedding and wipe off the entire cage at least once a week. Ensure the cleaning materials you use are pet-friendly to avoid harming your pet.

Read How Much Should I Feed My Hamster

5. Don’t Groom Your Winter White Hamster

Hamsters are usually clean creatures that groom themselves well. They don’t need to be bathed or brushed.

However, some hamsters are pretty tame, and you may assist them in getting something trapped in their fur out by gently stroking their fur using a moist towel.

Watch out when petting hamsters as they bite a lot and need chew toys to keep their teeth occupied.

Bathing a hamster may be stressful, causing undue stress and placing them in danger of shock. Furthermore, bathing can remove healthy oil from your hamster’s fur, which isn’t good.

However, you can use a sand bath. The sand bath is an alternative to bathing, and it allows tiny animals, such as your winter white hamster bathe by rolling about in the sand.

The Niteangel Small Animal Sand-Bath Box from Amazon.com is an excellent option. Since it’s transparent, it’s easy for you to watch what your hamster is doing. You may need to train your hamster to use it, though.

Read Why Is My Hamster Bleeding From Its Bottom?

How Much Does a Winter White Hamster Cost?

Even a little pet like a hamster is a significant commitment that demands substantial financial and emotional effort. Unexpectedly, some people may be concerned about the expense of ownership. However, winter white hamsters are affordable.

A winter white hamster can cost between 15 and $25. If you buy one from a breeder, the hamster can cost as much as $50. Optionally, you can adopt one for free. However, these rates may change depending on the hamster’s age or features.

On average, male winter white hamsters can grow to be 0.67 to 1.59 ounces (19 to 45 grams), and the females can weigh 0.67 to 1.27 ounces (19 to 45 grams) when fully grown. But they can grow bigger than this; they can reach up to 2 ounces (56 grams) and live for one to three years in captivity.

However, winter white hamsters may live longer if they’re well cared for.

Despite their small size and short lifetime, winter white hamsters make fantastic pets and will be excellent friends for as long as you own them. I recommend getting one as a first pet or a new addition to your family.

Is Owning a Winter White Hamster Expensive?

Parents and new pet owners are sometimes hesitant to start with hamsters as their first pets. Although many pet stores will recommend hamsters because of their small size and the minimal maintenance necessary to keep them happy, some individuals may be concerned about the cost of ownership.

Owning a winter white hamster is inexpensive. The average annual expense of having a pet hamster is around $400 to $600. Hamsters are cheaper than the more commonly kept dogs and cats since they require no vaccines, minimal entertainment, little food, and fewer trips to the doctor.

The cost covers everything, including food, visits to the vet, and necessary supplies.

Where Can I Get a Winter White Hamster?

Winter white hamsters are inexpensive, and you have a few choices when purchasing them. Additionally, acquiring a hamster cage and other necessities when buying the hamster may save you a substantial sum overall.

You can get a winter white hamster from a pet retailer or hamster breeder. Other options are to adopt the hamster from a pet shelter or get it free from pet owners searching for a new home for their hamsters. You can even buy a winter white hamster from an online pet retailer like PetSmart.

When it comes to buying pets, online stores are a great option, and they also have great offers on other pet products. On the other hand, pet shelters are usually better for providing animals with homes and families.

I’d encourage you to be cautious regardless of where you get them. Winter white hamsters look like the more common dwarf hamsters, which may confuse some pet retailers.

Therefore, get your hamster from a trustworthy breeder or knowledgeable rescue organization to ensure you’re getting an authentic winter white hamster.

You may like the following hamster articles:

• How To Train Your Hamster To Cuddle
• Difference Between a Hamster and a Gerbil
• How Long Should a Hamster Be in a Ball?
• Is Aquarium Sand Safe for Hamsters?
• Why Is My Hamster Shaking a Lot

Key Takeaways

Winter white hamsters are lovely creatures that make fantastic pets. Although they’re low-maintenance animals, you need to take a few measures to ensure they’re well cared for and comfortable.

The tips I discussed in this article are simple, but they’ll go a long way in ensuring your winter white hamster lives a long, happy, and comfortable life.