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Can Hamsters Eat Pumpkin Seeds?

If you plan to get yourself a cute and lovely pet that will always welcome you with joy, hamster is an ideal choice for you. This little rodent has become extremely popular as a pet in many households. It is not demanding like some bigger animals, such as dogs or cats. Hamster loves to play and cuddle and can be a good choice for people who love animals, but don’t have enough space for more demanding pets. Hamster would certainly win your heart with its intelligence, cuteness and wits.

Hamsters are nocturnal creatures, so your new friend would sleep the sleep of the righteous, while you do your daily appointments. When you return home in the evening, let it out of the cage and enjoy some time playing with it. Spending some time in its company would certainly be more interesting then watching television or else.

Since hamsters are active during the night, you should provide it a cage big enough to run and toys to play. Running wheel can be a great source of entertainment and activity for most of the hamsters. In addition, it will keep your pet fit and healthy, since hamsters tend to obesity.

Hamster’s diet

Feeding hamster is very simple. Their diet mainly consists of seeds and grains you can purchase in any pet store. You can also mix them yourself and include other staples, like rice. Hamsters are small and they don’t need a lot of food. A tablespoon of hamster ready-made mixture per day will be sufficient. You should also give your pet some vegetable and fruit, every third day. Several servings of raw food a week will improve their digestion and prevent constipation and obesity. 

Commercial mixed seeds are the best choice as a base of every hamster specie diet. Those mixtures are formulated according to those little rodents’ nutritional needs and they meet their daily requirements. They are prepared of appropriate proportion of larger and smaller seeds with pellets and grains. Mixtures usually contain flax, sesame, wheat, sunflower, pumpkin seeds and corn kernels. 

Pumpkin seeds for hamsters

As you can see, pumpkin seeds are included in regular diet plans for hamsters. Some pets are extremely picky and they could even choose a particular type of seeds from the mixture. Some hamsters really enjoy pumpkin seeds.

However, pumpkin seeds alone should never be used as a staple food. Due to its fat content, eating too much of it could make your pet obese and unhealthy. Obesity is dangerous to every living creature, especially for such a small body like hamster’s.

Pumpkin seeds contain many beneficial nutrients for hamsters, just like sunflower seeds. They are good to your pet’s health, but only given as treats. Keep to small amounts once in a while. You should be particularly cautious if you have smaller specie of hamster. They are usually more prone to obesity than the larger ones. They tend to get overweight and develop diabetes more easily. Therefore, you could feed it pumpkin seeds with extreme caution and in moderation. Carrots are healthy for hamsters, so they might be a better alternative.