Natural wood

Since I got my young hamster last week, I have been on the lookout for natural wood for my hamster Elfie to bite & chew on. Hamsters need a source to chew on, so that they can maintain the length of their ever growing teeth.

I was skeptical about those commercial wooden blocks that are sold at pet stores, coz they have added colouring to make it look colourful, which isn't a natural wood smell to a hamster & I wouldn't like Elfie to be chewing on colouring anyway. Its just not natural & probably harmful to take into its body.

Thinking about it - it could be a possible reason why Rebecca's hamster Sebastian doesn't chew on those coloured ice-cream sticks which she got for him. This is how I started on the idea of scouting for a small piece of natural wood, leave it in Elfie's cage & see if Elfie chews on it instead of those commercially sold wooden blocks.

Whenever I walk home from the bus stop near my house, I would keep a lookout for wood lying near the trees. At the end of last week, I found this long piece of wooden branch that had fallen from a tree near my house. It was of reasonable width, slightly smaller than a hamster's body size & has corners that make it easier for a hamster to chew on, compared to trying to chew on the full width of the wood. So I used my feet & broke this wooden branch into 3 parts & took 1 part home.

Elfie loved it & ever since, he has been gnawing on it everyday. This kick-started his habit of chewing, which apparently Sebastian has not been doing, which isn't too good for a hamster coz its lower teeth would grow longer & improportionate to its upper teeth which gets a little bit of chiselling from chewing on its nuts & food.

After getting used to the habit of chewing on natural wood, Elfie started to chew on the small half toilet roll piece of circular inner cardboard too! Now he has two sources to chew & grind its teeth on. Yeah! Lesson to be learnt - artificially made stuff may not always work... especially on an animal who lives in the outdoors.