They are cute and and furry and you can keep them as a pet. They can entertain you, especially if they run around and around on their little wheel. These are hamsters.
It is always nice to keep a pet, but you need to remember that if you have a pet, you have a responsibility to love them and feed them. You also need to keep them safe.
- Have a look at the video on what you will need to keep a hamster as a pet.
Hamsters have soft fur, big eyes, two ears and a short tail. They are rodents, the same as mice and rats. There are 25 species of hamsters.
- Find some pictures of different types of hamsters.
Hamster is 'crepuscular' - this means they will come out to feed when the sun sets.
They like to stay in burrows in the wild and that is why if you keep them as a pet, they need a place where they can hide in or under something.
Hamsters are very good diggers, they will create burrows in the soil that can be over half a meter deep, containing various rooms for different purposes.
Hamsters eat seeds, fruits and vegetables and sometimes even insects.
Hamsters can carry a lot of food in their cheeks. They will fill up the poaches to carry back to their burrows and it can make their heads look twice or three time as big as what it normally is.
Hamsters can be very cute and entertaining and you will not be able to prevent yourself from falling in love with them.
Hamsters can not see very well and they are also colour blind, so they need to rely on finding their way through smell. They have special glands that gives off a smell if they rub against something to find their way back to their burrow.. They can also smell food easily.
The Syrian hamster is the most popular and well known breed kept as pets. All Syrian hamsters as pets are believed to have descended from one pair in 1930.
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