Having a pet hamster can be amazing especially if you are trying to teach your kids responsibilities. However, having a pet hamster can also be tricky especially when it comes to the type of foods you should be feeding them. For this article, we will take a look at whether or not hamsters can eat bananasYou can definitely feed your hamster bananas but you must do so with a few factors in mind. You should never feed your hamster too much banana and you should not do so more than once a week. The amount of banana that you give your hamster should not exceed 1/4 of a teaspoon.That was just a brief answer. In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into this topic. We will talk about how you should feed banana to your hamster and we will also take a look at what to do if you feed too much banana to your hamster. Finally, as a bonus section, we will take a look at four other fruits that are great for hamsters. So, let’s get into it.

Can You Feed Your Hamster Bananas?

As we mentioned above, you can feed bananas to your hamster however, there are a few very important things that you need to note before doing so. This is for the safety of your hamster. Here is a list of the important things you should note, and if you want to know more about them, we will go in-depth regarding the most important factors on the list.

• Do not feed them banana more than once a week.

• Only feed them very small amounts.

• No added sugars.

• No added salts.
• Should be fed as a snack or a dessert.

I highly recommend that you keep reading so that you can safely feed bananas to your hamster. Let’s take a look at these factors in more detail.

Do Not Give Banana To Your Hamster More Than Once A Week

In this section, we are going to take a look at why you should not feed banana to a hamster more than once a week. This is extremely important.You should know that Rodents cannot throw up. That being said, bananas are high in fiber and if you feed bananas to your hamster more than once a week, your hamster will be eating too much fiber and this can cause some subtle to serious side effects for the hamster. These side effects include:

• Diarrhea
• Nausea
• Death

I know, that small list is pretty scary but as I said, the side effects of too much fiber in a hamster’s diet can cause subtle to “serious” side effects.

Only Give Small Amounts Of Banana To Your Hamster

This section is somewhat related to the one above but there are other factors that we need to discuss other than just the amount of fiber a hamster can tolerate in their diet.If you feed your hamster too much banana they will probably eat it all because they do love bananas and other sweet treats and fruits. With that being said, there are times that the hamster will leave some of the banana for later and during this time the banana will become moldy and off. This can become poisonous to the hamster.Once the banana becomes moldy and poisonous to the hamster then the side effects can be on the more serious side of what we discussed in the section above. If you start to think that you gave them too much banana, go back and check to make sure they did not leave any in their cage.

©American Pet Pro

It Should Be Given As A Dessert

In this section, we will take a look at why the banana should not be given to the hamster as a standalone meal and why you should rather give it to your hamster as a snack or dessert.The reason why you are not feeding your hamster too much banana or feeding them banana too frequently is mainly because of the fiber content of the banana. Therefore the small amounts of banana will not be a substantial enough meal for the hamster.Think of it in terms of a human. We love ice cream but we cannot eat too much of it as we will get ill. Now imagine for a second that all you had to eat every day for a few days was a small portion of ice cream. It might sound great at first but you will get very sick if you do this.Apply that same logic to your hamster.

Do Not Add Anything To The Banana 

You do not want to add anything to the banana when feeding it to your hamster. This mainly includes any type of sugars. It might seem like you are doing them a favor by giving them an even sweeter treat. Now, let’s take a look at whether or not you should do this.Almost all fruit does contain natural sugars. Hamsters do not do so well at digesting them. This is part of the reason why you should only give your hamster small pieces of any fruits. That being said, it is even worse if you try to give a hamster any type of refined sugar.Hamsters cannot properly digest sugars, not only that, but it is also bad for their teeth and if you feed your hamster too many sugars, you can end up with a hamster that is ill and unable to properly chew its food.

What To Do If You Feed Your Hamster Too Much Banana

It is first important to note that you should not feed your hamster too much banana but if you do perhaps do it, maybe by accident, or if you notice that your hamster has left a piece of banana in his cage, you should sort it out immediately.If you feed your hamster too much banana and you notice that a piece is leftover in the cage, you want to remove that piece of banana as soon as you can and not wait until you do your general cleanups of the cage.If your hamster has eaten too much banana, you want to keep monitoring them and make sure that they are drinking their water. If it looks like they are starting to become ill you want to take the hamster to the vet almost immediately.Please do not wait too long before taking the hamster to the vet so that the vet can start working on the hamster as soon as possible.

©My Family Vets

Bonus: What Are The Best Fruits To Feed Hamsters?

Before we conclude this article, I decided to make a little bonus section because I am sure that if you are asking the question about bananas, you have considered giving your hamster other fruits. We are not going to mention all the fruits that hamsters can eat, we are just going to mention some of the best ones.It is important to remember that any food that has a seed in it should have its seeds removed before feeding it to the hamster. Fruit seeds might contain certain toxins that can be fatal to the hamster.Again, much like with a banana, all of these fruits need to be given to your hamster in moderation and you should not add any type of sugar to the fruits.All of that being said, here is a quick list of the 4 best fruits to feed your hamster as a snack or as a dessert.

• Blueberries
• Banana
• Apple’s
• Pears.

Conclusion

With everything that I have mentioned in this article, it is important to remember that giving your hamster small treats such as small portions of banana every now and then is not a bad thing. You can actually use it as a way to teach your kids about the importance of monitoring certain foods before eating them.