Naturally, hamsters are omnivores, eating plant material and insects in the wild. However, in captivity, hamsters eat whatever is fed to them. Thus, a negligent or inexperienced owner may accidentally overfeed their pet because they are not carefully monitoring how much food they are providing to the small hamster. To properly handle a fat hamster, the owner will have to monitor their pet’s diet more closely, increase water consumption, restrict fatty foods, and encourage exercise.
When owning a pet, one needs to take full responsibility of properly handling their pet’s diet because the pet literally depends on handouts for every single meal. Thus, you need to properly control what you feed your hamster, and that can begin with restricting nuts from their diet since they are high in fat content. Thus, be wary of nuts like pecans, walnuts, and cashews because they will quickly fatten up a hamster. Instead, feed your hamster seeds like sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds since the fat content is much lower. If you do decide to feed your hamster nuts, do so sparingly.
Keep in mind that hamsters are nocturnal creatures. Do not try to feed them during the day, as they will likely be sleeping and will be irritated if you wake them up. Rather, place their food around the dawn hours. Put in enough food for only one sitting – do not worry about them starving, they naturally store food to be consumed later.
An overweight hamster can have difficulty getting herself to water if the bottle is too far away. Water is an essential part of your hamster’s diet. Place the water bottle close to the hamster’s nesting site, rather than across the cage.
It is a good idea to keep your hamster active, as exercise is a good way to burn calories and lose weight. An exercise wheel is a great way for your hamster to expend some energy. Placing hamster toys in the cage will also encourage your pet to chew on them, stack them up, and rearrange it to its liking, all of which burns calories. You may even take them out of their cage to play with them from time to time, however make sure that you are doing this at night – hamsters are nocturnal creatures, remember that!
As tempting as it may be, do not give your hamster scraps of human food. A fat hamster has no self-control and will gladly eat whatever is handed to them. Do not give your hamster meat, chocolates, or milk products. Not only are they high in calories, but they can have adverse effects on your hamster’s health.