My son is saving for a hamster and cage etc. and is almost there. The question is what sort should he get – Dwarf or Syrian? Which is most fun and least bitey? How do we prevent the cat and dog from snacking on it?

No-one messes with ninja hamster!!!!

We had this “discussion” recently.

The only good answer was Guinea pigs, outdoor ones. Very friendly wee things, non biting, active all day and not stinking the house out. Win.

Get a rat, much more interesting and intelligent than a hamster. Hamsters are rubbish, and they bite a lot more.

We went for a pair of gerbils
+seem more inquisitive and smell/wee less
-need more volume to dig in (60x60x45cm ‘gerbilium’ with a foot of substrate )

Unfortunately it has to be a hamster because of this:

We’ve had half a dozen, the cats eventually get them.

Russian Dwarfs are my favourite.

Get as big a wire cage as possible(the plastic tube type are not cat proof) and they can actually be quite nice pets.

Don’t get one of the long haired ones, they’re notorious for costing loads to get their teeth sorted.

Syrian hamsters are bigger, friendlier, stupider and less bitey. Easier to catch too (for both your son, and the cat I would have thought).

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Ern74xGsQ[/video]

hamsters are fine – my kids wife has had four (they don’t live long which teaches kids about mortality and also means YOU don’t spend years cleaning the fecker out !)

If you handle them when they’re young they don’t bite in our experience

Downside for youngish kids is that they are most entertaining after about 10pm (lost of climbing on the bars of his cage etc)

Ours have all been syrian – I assume others are similar in terms of being nocturnal/crepuscular

(make sure the wheel in the cage is big enough for them to run properly – I bought a bigger one for ours via ebay)

We have two dwarf hamsters – the odd little nibble when our kids hold them too tight (they are only 5 so not really that good with understanding about handling animals) but otherwise very pleasant and quite cute. Bloody quick though.