If you’re a hamster owner, you know the importance of keeping your small friend healthy and happy. While it can be easy to recognize diarrhea in animals like cats and dogs, it’s not always easy to tell what’s “normal” for hamsters. It’s essential to know what hamster diarrhea looks like; suppose your hamster experiences one.
Hamster diarrhea looks lighter in color and runnier than typical hamster feces. It loses its signature pellet shape and sometimes comes with the wet tail condition or hind end on the hamster.
In this article, I’ll discuss what hamster diarrhea looks like in more detail, what potential causes of diarrhea in hamsters are, and what you should do if you think your hamster has diarrhea. Keep reading.
What Does It Look Like When a Hamster Has Diarrhea?
With animals as small as hamsters, paying attention to changes in their health is especially important, as they can be more prone to severe side effects.
A hamster with diarrhea looks like it has feces paler in color than healthy hamster feces. Diarrhea in hamsters typically results in a runny presentation rather than pellets. Sometimes, you may notice wet areas around your hamster’s backside and tail when they have diarrhea.
Healthy hamster feces should look like very small pellets that are dark in color and relatively firm to the touch. It’s normal to find areas of concentrated feces where your hamster spends most of its time.
On the other hand, hamster diarrhea has a paler and wetter consistency, and even if it’s not entirely liquid, it’s abnormal for hamster feces to lose its shape or be soft and moist.
You shouldn’t confuse hamster diarrhea with hamster urine, which has a white, filmy consistency and leaves white stains in areas where it’s been sitting for a while.
Don’t be concerned with removing white stains from your hamster’s habitat; they’re perfectly normal, and as long as you wipe the liquid and appropriately cleanse their cage, there should be no lingering odor from these stains.
One major indicator that your hamster has diarrhea is that your hamster’s hind end and tail will appear wet. This condition is known as “wet tail,” and it’s a severe condition in hamsters.
Read How To Take Care of a Hamster
Diarrhea in Hamsters Could Indicate Wet Tail
While there are numerous reasons for hamsters to develop diarrhea that aren’t life-threatening and will typically resolve within a few days, hamster diarrhea can also be an indicator of the wet tail, which is a potentially life-threatening condition in hamsters.
If you notice your hamster has begun having diarrhea, you’ll want to pay close attention, as the severity of this can have a wide range of implications.
However, if you notice that your hamster has diarrhea in conjunction with other symptoms, then they likely have a wet tail, which you should take very seriously.
Additional symptoms of the wet tail that you should pay attention to are:
- Inappetance
- Dehydration
- Lethargy and excessive sleeping
- Feces has a strong, foul-smelling odor
- Weight loss
- Occasionally a hunched back is also noticed in hamsters with wet tails.
Wet tail is mainly concerning due to how quickly diarrhea can dehydrate hamsters. Because of how small they are, hamsters must retain homeostasis, and wet tails can cause fatal dehydration in these small animals.