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To bite or not to bite? That is the eternal hamster question.
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Hey guys! It's Em, and today I am joined by my little hamster Wookie Latte,
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who's a little bit shy, and we're going to be talking about hamster nutrition.
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"Hamshter"? "Hambshter"?
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"Hamster" nutrition.
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[sped-up voice] He is my rescue hamster, and I say "rescued" because he was found outdoors in a park
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in a box, by a friend of mine who walks dogs for a living.
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[back to normal speed] Now, a lot of people think that hamsters only eat seeds and nuts
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because that's typically what you find when you go and buy a seed mix from the stores.
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Hamsters are actually omnivores. They can eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, and even some meat.
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Typically when you go to the pet store, you tend to find something that looks like this:
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Basically a bag of food with a seed and mixed grain.
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But what a lot of pet shops fail to tell you is that hamsters are actually omnivorous.
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They eat a whole plethora of foods: everything from fruit, vegetables, to the usual seed,
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and yes, even a little bit of meat, too.
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So I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about hamster nutrition.
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It is quite important to switch up the diet a little bit,
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because if you're just feeding seeds and nuts and cereals, it can get a little bit boring.
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And they're gonna have optimum nutrition if you give a little bit of variation.
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Put it this way: it's kind of like living off of cereal for the whole of your life,
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even though that you're an omnivore. Would you do that?
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No, so please don't do it to your hamster.
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This is for Syrian hamsters, and also for Syrian hamsters who don't have diabetes.
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if your Syrian hamster has diabetes, please consult your vet.
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or if you think that your Syrian hamster might have diabetes
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or any other hamster you keep, please consult your vet.
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So, grains and nuts. A couple of things that I keep in the house
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that I like to feed to Wookie Latte - in small portions, mind you -
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are his usual seed, which I scatter feed, which means I don't just put it in a bowl.
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I kind of scatter it because it means he has to go and look for it,
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and that gives him a bit of enrichment.
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Kind of gives him a bit more excitement when it comes to his regular day-to-day activities
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and always having something on a plate. He has to actually go and find his seeds.
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I give him a mixture of sunflower seeds, he sometimes has flax seed.
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You can also feed a little bit of pistachio,
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you can feed a little bit of walnut.
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Remember, walnut is very, very fattening, so only feed a little bit of walnut at a time.
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Everything in moderation. Moderation is the key.
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Some other grain-type foods, carbohydrates, that you can feed to your hamster,
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which you might have around the house: little bits of cooked pasta or spaghetti.
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Now, I know that sounds weird, but honestly, they love it as a treat.
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As a treat! It shouldn't be every day. I give Wookie Latte, who is running on his wheel,
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I give Wookie Latte one piece of penne pasta every three or four days.
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You can also do the same for brown rice. You can use white rice,
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but it's not as good and nutritious for them as brown rice.
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So you can get them a little bit of brown rice, or the edge of a piece of toast as well.
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Vegetation! This is where I'm going to have to run a whole load of things off pretty quick.
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Vegetables! A couple of vegetables that you find around the house quite commonly: sweet potato.
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They love sweet potato, but make sure that you cook it first.
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Don't feed your potato raw. Give them a little bit of cooked sweet potato,
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and they will thank you forever and ever and ever.
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Corn on the cob! They love a bit of corn on the cob. Take it off the corn,
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I just feed a little bit of sweet corn, so I get two or three pieces of sweet corn a couple of times a week,
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And I scatter them, and Wookie Latte absolutely adores them.
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He loves them so much that I have replaced his store-bought treats,
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which were like a yogurt-drop-type thing, I don't know,
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and I've replaced that with corn, and he loves corn. If he's going to calm down in my hands,
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it's because he's eating a piece of sweet corn.
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[imitating hamster eating sounds]
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Who doesn't like sweet corn? Sweet corn is the best! It's so much fun going in, and it's fun on the other end too...
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[giggles]
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Celery! Your hamster can eat celery. Give a little bit, make sure that it is washed.
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If you can go organic for any of these foods, that is far better to do
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because then you know there's no harmful pesticides on there.
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In fact, coming to pesticides, another food which is fantastic and a really great treat
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which you might see in a dry form in your pet store is dandelion.
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They can eat the stalk, they can eat the leaves, and they can eat the head as well.
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But make sure if you are gonna feed dandelion, if you go out and collect it yourself,
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please, please, make sure that the area you are collecting from is not treated for pesticide.
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If you can grow your own dandelions, that is great. Make sure you wash any dandelions from outside
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because you don't know if you have dogs peeing on them or pesticides,
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just make sure you wash, wash, wash, and please try and get them as natural as possible.
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Cucumber! Now, here's a very interesting thing about cucumber, is it's very high in water.
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And what happens when the hamster eats lots of things with water, things like lettuce and cucumber?
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[pooing noises]
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Diarrhea everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Which you don't want.
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Because if your hamster honestly gets diarrhea, it can get dehydrated very, very quickly.
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If you suspect that your hamster has diarrhea, take it straight to the vet.
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Don't be giving it any Imodium or any over-the-counter medicines, go straight to your vet.
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And for that reason, if you're going to feed any cucumber, minuscule amounts.
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Tiny. Tiny. Tiny! Amounts.
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And they love a bit of good cooked parsnip. I like parsnips, too.
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I like them glazed. Don't give them glazed parsnips.
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Just bog-standard, roasted parsnip. With nothing on. Nothing at all.
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Also watercress. Now, watercress is a fantastic food for that.
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You can give them little handfuls of it, and you can watch them. It's really sweet.
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They just stuff it in their mouth, so they seem to really love watercress, so watercress is fantastic, too.
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Peas! Any peas you can really cheaply buy, shop-bought peas.
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You can get them like peas in water, let me see if I can insert something for you.
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Where is it gonna come up? [tongue click] Over here.
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Shtop - shop - port... shop-bought peas!
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I buy them in water, that's just a lot cheaper.
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There's no nastiness in there. Not mushy peas, garden peas.
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So you can get your peas in water. You just pick out one or two at a time.
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You can feed maybe two or three of those in a day, so two or three little peas you can feed.
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The rest, eat yourself! They're good for you.
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Don't forget to eat your greens.
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Now fruit! Fruit you want to be sparing with, but fruit,
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they can actually eat things like banana, little nub of banana, they will love that.
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In fact, what I do with Wookie Latte is I get a little bit of banana,
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and I smear it in a line across some of these willow sticks.
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Like little willow sticks I have, and he has to go along and eat it up like that whilst balancing.
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Again, it's a little bit of enrichment for him. So you can feed a little bit of banana,
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but sparingly because it's very high in sugar. And remember what sugar does.
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You have too much sugar, what you gonna get? Fat. And diabetes possibly.
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So you want to look out for any signs of obesity or fattiness or diabetes as well in your hamster, so just a little bit.
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Grapes! You can feed grapes. What I do, I like to half the grapes, because again
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they're quite watery, so I half the grapes. I take out the seeds - not that they'll do too much damage,
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I mean that is debatable, but I just to be on the safe side, I take out the seeds.
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Tomato. Hey! It's a fruit. Did you know that? Yes, tomato is a fruit.
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Tomato, you can feed a little bit. Again, don't feed any seeds. Organic is better.
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Don't feed tomato vine! Ever!
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Just don't do it. Just feed them the actual tomato itself, and a very very little bit.
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I'm talking an amount that can balance on the tip of my finger over there. A tiny little niblet of food.
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Ah! Peaches! Peaches they like without the stone, don't put the stone.
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A lot of stones for a lot of fruits can be poisonous.
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What else am I missing? There's something I'm missing. Citrus. No citrus.
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And by citrus, I mean things like lemon and grapefruit.
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Anything like that, don't feed it. The only kind of exception here is kiwi.
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You can feed a little bit of kiwi, and they really do enjoy it.
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Apple you can feed as well. It doesn't matter if it's green apple or brown... apple...?
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Don't feed brown apple. Do you get brown apples? Red apples or green apples are absolutely fine to feed.
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Your hamster will really enjoy those.
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Again, I use them as a very seldom treat for Wookie Latte.
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Now, here's where it gets interesting! Meat and protein.
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Your hamster can eat meat. Now, there are lots of care sheets online that you can look up
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which swear by feeding a little bit of cooked chicken or a little bit of cooked beef,
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but I'm thinking to myself, hang on a second. I mean in the wild,
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is the hamster likely to come across cooked beef? No.
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Is the hamster gonna come across cooked chicken? No.
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But what your hamster might come across in the wild is carrion.
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Carrion are dead, deceased animal. So I do feed Wookie Latte - in small portions, mind you -
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is chopped up chick. Which I buy online, and I will insert a video around here, so that you can see.
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I hope that didn't gross you out too much. It's just one of those things in life. Animals need to eat meat.
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So I have that for my snakes, for some of my lizards, for my ferret, and also a little bit as well for Wookie Latte.
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And he enjoys a little bit of chopped up chick. If that's not for you, that's fine.
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There are alternatives, which will come to you right now.
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Crickets! Brown crickets are very, very common to come past. Most pet shops will have brown crickets
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because people who keep reptiles and other exotics really rely on brown crickets.
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They can be annoying because they sing quite a lot.
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I personally like it, makes me feel like I'm somewhere tropical at night,
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but if you chuck these into your enclosure,
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Sometimes some hamsters will chase after them. Wookie will do it.
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He will quite ferociously hunt for brown crickets.
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He really, really likes them, gives him his exercise. He's not just on his treadmill,
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He's actually hunting for his food.
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Now a great treat and a fantastic source of protein and a little bit of fat too, is mealworms.
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Mealworms are phenomenal and your hamster will love mealworms, like just guaranteed.
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Go out there, get some mealworms. If you're not going to use up the whole batch,
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you can feed your birds outside as well. Trust me, a little handful of these just chucked outside,
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and you're gonna have every bird in the vicinity coming down and thanking you like you are their god or goddess.
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Thank you!
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Some people like [to] feed the dried mealworms,
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and there's not that much in them, that's kind of like eating potato chips.
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Depending where you are, probably not in North America because I think it's illegal, but locusts.
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Or you can go out and find them yourself.
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Or breed them yourself, even better! Locusts are fantastic too because they are slower moving
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than brown crickets, and it gives your hamster to sort of scurry on after them and learn how to hunt.
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Foods to avoid! This is very, very important.
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We are not going to be feeding any of the following because take my word for it,
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you will likely kill your hamster. Onion, no. Froot Loops, no. Avocado, no. Garlic, no.
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Spring onion or scallion, no. Candies, like candy canes, no! Pizza! Cheese!
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Just please, use your head. And if you're not sure,
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consult someone on the internet, or in a forum, call your veterinarian, look up a care sheet.
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Please just use your head, don't be throwing any rubbish in at your hamster.
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If you have any other recommendations of your own, then please do share them down below!
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Let that knowledge train go round and round and round
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so that we can help everybody become a better pet owner.
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And at the end of the day, this channel is all about that, is looking after your animals properly,
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promoting animals, promoting healthy keeping of them,
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and healthy mindfulness in all sorts of animal [snap] ways.
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If you enjoyed this video, then pop your comment down below, let me know.
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Give it a little thumbs up if you did like it,
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and if you didn't then you can feel free to hit that thumbs down button.
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I don't care. Go ahead, do it. [pfft; false begging] Please don't do it, please!
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You can also check out my Facebook, my Twitter, my Instagram. My Snapchat...
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I don't Snapchat half as much as I should, but I will for you. Just for you. [ding]
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If you haven't already, please do subscribe to my channel.
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It always gives me a little ego boost whenever I see somebody has liked my videos enough.
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And these videos take a lot of time, you know?
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They do take time. They take time for editing and filming
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and getting more pretty and dolled up as much as I can— [cell phone rings]
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What was that? [cell phone notification ding]
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Shh!
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Suddenly, everything is happening on my phone. It's very exciting. I'm gonna go and deal with that right now.
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What is this? "You have a video chat"? [cell phone dings] Oh?
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I don't know what to do with this. Some random person on Facebook,
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who I've never even heard of before, is trying to video chat with me.
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That's awkward. [laughs] No!
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Hey. Don't forget to subscribe!