ᐉ Why does a hamster drink a lot of water?

So, you have a funny furry animal, you take care of it and definitely want the pet to be cozy and comfortable. A typical mistake of many novice hamster owners is not to give their pets water, thinking that succulent food is enough. In fact, water is needed. The required amount depends on the size of the animal. For example, a dzhungarik drinks from 5 to 10 ml of water during the day. Syrian hamsters are larger. The average daily water requirement for them is 15-25 ml. Sometimes owners notice that the animal used to drink very little liquid, and suddenly the rodent’s daily portions have increased. There may be several reasons for an animal’s unexpected thirst. Let's look at why a hamster drinks a lot of water and whether it is dangerous.

Easily removable causes of thirst in a hamster

The most harmless reason for the disappearance of water is a defect in the drinking bowl, due to which water flows out on its own or during the animal’s consumption. In the second case, the hamster's face will be wet after drinking.

Uncomfortable conditions

Increased dryness in the room or temperatures above 22 C will cause increased thirst. In this case, the cage must be placed in a place where the temperature is 18-22 C o.

Hamster nutrition

When you are sure that the animal is healthy, the question of why the hamster drinks a lot may lie in a change in diet. It is recommended to introduce any new diet gradually so that the animal’s body has time to smoothly readjust and get used to it.

Unsuitable food, possibly containing salt or sugar, will also make the pet experience increased thirst, here the body needs to quickly remove unnatural trace elements. Therefore, it is necessary to check whether anyone is treating the hamster with treats, for example, chips or sweet cookies.

Water for domestic and wild hamsters

Djungarian and Syrian hamsters come from arid regions - semi-deserts and steppes. Hamsters hide in burrows from rain and avoid areas with open water. People sometimes don’t understand what hamsters drink in arid areas. It turns out that hamsters drink dew, they get it from blades of grass: it is dew that is the source of water for hamsters in the desert.

Conditions for a hamster at home are significantly different from their natural habitat, so it is especially important to provide the hamster with the necessary amount of water. Depending on the conditions in which the hamster is kept, as well as its diet, its need for water may change up or down.

Diseases: immune, inflammatory, enzyme disorder

A hamster that drinks a lot of water and also produces a lot of urine may be suffering from one of the following diseases: diabetes, kidney inflammation, or ketoacidosis.

Diabetes

The predisposition to this disease is genetic and is inherited. Signs indicating a metabolic disorder are as follows:

the animal’s urine will acquire a specific smell, which contains acetone, and therefore may resemble the smell of glue or nail polish;
Homa's behavior will also undergo a change, the animal will be either lethargic or overly active;
Appetite and appearance may not match each other.

Eating more food and losing weight at the same time clearly indicates the development of the disease.

How to exclude or confirm hamster diabetes at home

For this procedure, you need to purchase special strips from the pharmacy that detect sugar in the urine.

Attention! These are not strips for a glucometer, but specifically for urine. They are sold in cylindrical cases about 10 cm in length. The cost of these indicators is about 200 rubles per package. Most of these strips are also marked to detect ketone bodies, that is, the presence of acetone in the body.

The strip should be immersed in the hamster’s urine for a few seconds and evaluate how the indicator has changed. Typically, the scale for ketones ranges from beige to dark pink, while for sugar there is a green scale. A normal value corresponds to a sugar value from 4 to 5.5 mmol/l; after eating, this value can be higher - up to 10-12. In this case, if there is no acetone, you need to check for sugar again after 2-3 hours, keeping the hamster without food.

Refining the analysis

For the purity of measurements, it is best to take an analysis from the animal after it has slept for a long time. Having noticed such a moment, the sleepy ham needs to be placed in a clean tray. When the animal wakes up, it immediately pees. In this case, the accuracy of the test strip readings is quite high, because the hamster had a “fasting” period, because he did not eat during sleep and the concentration of substances in the urine itself increased for the same reason.

Analysis results

If sugar is detected without acetone, then your hamster has type 2 diabetes. This disease is controlled by a low-carbohydrate diet and sugar-burning medications. In this type of diabetes, insulin is retained in the body, and therefore ketone bodies are not detected.
If sugar and acetone are detected, your hamster has type 1 diabetes. Here, a diet is also used and the issue of insulin compensation is resolved, since in type 1 diabetes, insulin production completely stops.

Despite the general word diabetes, the mechanisms of disease development are different, as is the therapeutic approach.

Other possible diseases - kidney or pancreas

Symptoms very similar to diabetes occur with completely different ailments. Since these signs are quite similar to the diabetic profile, the disease can be excluded or confirmed by using the same test strips for determining sugar and acetone in the urine.

Sick kidneys

the pet’s urine has changed its smell to a stronger one than before, there may be traces of blood in the urine;
the animal’s mood has deviated from the norm - unreasonable activity or incomprehensible apathy has appeared;
increased appetite, which is accompanied by weight loss.

If the measurement did not show any changes in either the sugar indicator or the acetone indicator, there is a possibility of inflammatory or other nature of kidney disease. The development of a tumor process cannot be ruled out.

Veterinarian: why clarify the diagnosis?

Why is a veterinarian necessary when a hamster drinks too much water?

A diagnostic test does not mean that you should prescribe treatment for your hamster. This is just a way to save time by visiting a doctor with a ready-made test. Because without treatment, as well as with an erroneous prescription, the chance of recovery for homa is very small.

Without intervention, possible conditions such as type 1 diabetes and ketoacidosis can destroy a pet in the shortest possible time - from a few days to 2-3 weeks. As a result of the development of disorders, the hamster will first fall into a coma and then die.
Simple carbohydrates (vegetables and grains) that will help eliminate ketoacidosis will hasten the death of a diabetic hamster and vice versa.
Once you put someone with ketoacidosis on a low-carb diet, you can soon say goodbye to them.
Type 2 diabetes develops much more slowly, but ultimately leads to a critical condition - hypersmolar coma with subsequent death of the animal.
Kidney diseases can be inflammatory in nature, and they can be cured fairly quickly.

Only a veterinarian can determine how to change the diet correctly, what medications to give, how to calculate the dose and method.

Hamster drinks a lot of water

So how important is water for a hamster?

A hamster, like any other living organism, simply needs water, especially considering that it mainly eats dry specialized food. If you do not regularly give your rodent water, it will become drooping and slow, and this can also negatively affect its health and life expectancy in general.

There is an opinion among people that it is not necessary for a rodent to drink the water itself; supposedly it is enough to give it food or food moistened with water, or simply give it carrots and cabbage, believing that they themselves are quite juicy. I wonder if those who hold this opinion would like to eat, for example, bread soaked in water and not drink anything?