Syrian hamsters are not like a cat or dog; they need special care.
Read through this page to get a better idea of what Syrian hamsters are like and consider if a hamster's needs fit well with your lifestyle. We'll go over some quick facts, typical behavior, and a bit of the history of the Syrian hamster.
Read through this page to get a better idea of what Syrian hamsters are like and consider if a hamster's needs fit well with your lifestyle. We'll go over some quick facts, typical behavior, and a bit of the history of the Syrian hamster.
Syrian hamsters are...
Nocturnal
Domesticated Syrian hamsters, like the ones we have as pets, are nocturnal, meaning they're most active at night. In the wild, Syrian hamsters can run two to five miles in a single night! They need a wheel to run on at night, and they'll make enough noise in their cage that sleeping in the same room as them can be difficult. Solitary Syrian hamsters are not like humans; they want to live alone. If two adults are in the same cage, they will probably fight and hurt each other. Hamster pups can be together until they're about six weeks old, but after that they need to have an individual cage. Delicate While Syrian hamsters can usually handle a fall okay, their bodies are fragile and they can quickly become ill. Their lungs, especially, are susceptible to all sorts of hazards, like cigarette and wood smoke, the gas from aerosol cans, and the dust from softwood bedding. Syrian hamsters can also catch illnesses from other animals. It's good to read up on common hamster illnesses and how to avoid them, and it's also good to anticipate a vet visit (or couple) in their lifetime. Short Lived Unfortunately, Syrian hamsters usually only live a year or two. At Zika Hamstery, our average lifespan is 22 months old, with some "old" hamsters passing away as young as 17 months. Active While some cats and dogs like to cuddle humans, it is rare for a hamster to snuggle up or fall asleep with a human. Hamsters are always on the go and curious about everything! They can get bored and will need toys to keep them happy. Toys like wheels, chews, fresh treats, and cardboard boxes. While Zika Hamstery does conscientiously breed hamsters to be friendly, "friendly" doesn't necessarily mean "cuddly". |
History of the Syrian Hamster
Syrian hamsters originally come from... Syrian! No surprise there. Their habitat is in a small section of northern Syrian and part of Turkey, and in that small area they were prolific! They're actually quite the pests to farmers, being as hamsters can steal and hoard tons of grain in their burrows. In the last 80 years since we started domesticating the Syrian hamster, the species was classified as having a conservation status of "vulnerable" in the wild. Not to worry, though, as the Syrian hamster is well established as a common household pet! At this point the Syrian hamster will not become extinct.
It is kind of incredible that the Syrian hamster has only been a pet for 80 years. If you think about how cats and dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, it's easy to see why our pet hamsters look so similar to wild hamsters while our pet corgis look very different from wolves! Let's go over how hamsters went from living wild in Syria to living as pets in North America.
We have to thank laboratory animal testing for the domestication of Syrian hamsters. In 1930s, Israel Aharoni and Georgius Khalil Tah'an dug out a Syrian hamster nest with a nursing mother and 11 pups. Aharoni chronicled their misadventures in his book, Memoirs of a Hebrew Zoologist, which has some delightful excerpts. Those hamsters were brought to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where Dr. Saul Adler established a colony and used them for medical research. Later, Dr. Adler took decedents of those hamsters and smuggled them to laboratories in other countries, and those laboratories established their own colonies. This is how the Syrian hamster originally came to laboratories in the UK and the US.
As for how the hamster became a household pet in the US, we have to thank gambling and sketchy business schemes. After the Syrian hamster was already established as a laboratory animal, Albert Marsh won a hamster in a gambling wager. He somehow got a second and then convinced other people that breeding and selling them as pets was a good business model. Indeed, it was a profitable business for a short time, right up until there were enough hamsters for everyone who wanted one. Demand and profit quickly deflated and interest in small scale hamsteries phased out of US consciousness. Nonetheless, by this point the Syrian hamster had become a common animal in the US and people expected to be able to keep them as pets.
Now, small scale breeders in North America are trying to improve the health and temperaments of Syrian hamsters. Perhaps after a thousand years of domestication and selective breeding, hamsters will be as varied as dogs are today! Our understanding of what the Syrian hamster is and how to care for them has come a long way in 80 years, and our understanding will keep improving in the coming years.
It is kind of incredible that the Syrian hamster has only been a pet for 80 years. If you think about how cats and dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years, it's easy to see why our pet hamsters look so similar to wild hamsters while our pet corgis look very different from wolves! Let's go over how hamsters went from living wild in Syria to living as pets in North America.
We have to thank laboratory animal testing for the domestication of Syrian hamsters. In 1930s, Israel Aharoni and Georgius Khalil Tah'an dug out a Syrian hamster nest with a nursing mother and 11 pups. Aharoni chronicled their misadventures in his book, Memoirs of a Hebrew Zoologist, which has some delightful excerpts. Those hamsters were brought to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where Dr. Saul Adler established a colony and used them for medical research. Later, Dr. Adler took decedents of those hamsters and smuggled them to laboratories in other countries, and those laboratories established their own colonies. This is how the Syrian hamster originally came to laboratories in the UK and the US.
As for how the hamster became a household pet in the US, we have to thank gambling and sketchy business schemes. After the Syrian hamster was already established as a laboratory animal, Albert Marsh won a hamster in a gambling wager. He somehow got a second and then convinced other people that breeding and selling them as pets was a good business model. Indeed, it was a profitable business for a short time, right up until there were enough hamsters for everyone who wanted one. Demand and profit quickly deflated and interest in small scale hamsteries phased out of US consciousness. Nonetheless, by this point the Syrian hamster had become a common animal in the US and people expected to be able to keep them as pets.
Now, small scale breeders in North America are trying to improve the health and temperaments of Syrian hamsters. Perhaps after a thousand years of domestication and selective breeding, hamsters will be as varied as dogs are today! Our understanding of what the Syrian hamster is and how to care for them has come a long way in 80 years, and our understanding will keep improving in the coming years.