Have bed, will travel - a hamster syndrome

Do you find yourself getting stressed at the thought of your pet hamsters going to bed? Do you start watching your pets to see if they are curling up to sleep, or are they attacking their bedding? That’s right, this is a problem many hamster owners seem to have faced. But is it really a problem?

Consider this - hamsters often seem to be eating their beddings, and this really disturbs the pet parents. But are they really eating their bedding? Look carefully, study what they are doing, for a few days. Have you noticed that they aren’t ingesting the stuff? You know why? Because they are shredding their bedding, pulling out the innards and stuffing them in their mouths - actually, in the corner of their mouths. And you’ll never guess why!

The simple explanation is, that hamsters use their mouths to store and transport things. So, when they want to shift house (LOL), their main concern is how to shift their bedding to a new location. They then shred (dismantle!) their bedding into smaller pieces, stuff them into their mouths, and move them to a new place. If you think about it, it really is a rather clever idea that saves your hamster time and effort when it’s time to shift house - to another corner of your living room, perhaps?

Now that you know that you don’t have to stress about why your hamster is eating its bedding, you still need to worry about a different aspect of this situation. An important aspect.

Although you can rest assured that your pet hamster is not eating its bedding, the fact that it’s storing something in its mouth for quite some time calls for a degree of care on your part. You need to ensure that the bedding you get for your pet hamster does not contain any toxic material that may make your pet ill or even die.

Try to choose bedding that is made of natural fibers that will not harm your pet hamster if accidently ingested. Avoid bedding containing pine and cedar shavings that may irritate your pets’ lungs because they contain essential oils and can actually cause allergies in humans too. Similarly, avoid paper from books, magazines and newspapers because they have printing ink which can be toxic even in your pets’ mouth.

You must also resist the temptation to use scented bedding, or cat litter - which some people have been known to use. Scented bedding contains chemicals that may harm your pet hamster, and cat litter is generally indigestible for hamsters.

So, don’t panic when your pet hamster starts chewing its bedding - it probably just wants to build a new nest. And all you need to do is ensure the right choice of material for your pets bedding to keep it safe from harm.