For the most part, you should be feeding your hamster pellets formulated specifically for them. However, hamsters can occasionally have treats to spice things up a bit. Commercial hamster treats aren’t always the healthiest option, though. If you have the time and ability, you may want to consider making homemade hamster treats.
Below, we’ve listed some of our favorite recipes for you to try.
The 6 DIY Hamster Treats
1. Holiday Hamster Treats
| Ingredient: | Pumpkin, non-fat Greek yogurt, toasted rolled oats, unsalted, unseasoned walnuts, pumpkin seeds, craisins, coconut oil |
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
These treats contain several ingredients that are healthy for your hamster, including pumpkin seeds and canned pumpkin. Just be sure that you purchase the plain version of these ingredients, as you don’t want any dangerous seasonings or sugar making their way into your hamster’s treats.
Because there are so many ingredients involved, these treats are a bit more complicated to make than some others. However, the instructions are straightforward to follow. You’ll mostly just be mixing things together.
Below, we’ve listed some of our favorite recipes for you to try.
2. Cheerio Hamster Treats
| Ingredient: | Cheerios, sesame seeds, honey, oats |
| Difficulty: | Easy |
This recipe is very straightforward and doesn’t contain many ingredients. Plus, you may already have all of these ingredients lying around. However, these treats do contain honey, which makes them a bit higher in sugar than others. Be sure to feed them only in moderation, though we are pretty sure that your hamster will love them.
This recipe involves a lot of crushing and mixing. It’s a fun recipe to get the kids involved in if they like cooking.
3. Tiny Hamster Pizza
| Ingredient: | Water, whole wheat flour, hamster food, millet |
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
This recipe makes a fun hamster pizza that’s pretty easy to make. It only requires four ingredients, and the bulk of the recipe is your usual hamster food. Therefore, it’s a great option for hamsters that can’t seem to handle many unusual ingredients.
You basically make a dough and make a small little pizza. Then, you top it with seeds and your hamster food. Theoretically, you could also use other ingredients on top. It’s an easy recipe to adjust.
4. Yogurt Drops for Hamsters
| Ingredient: | Raspberries, plain yogurt |
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
This very simple recipe requires only two ingredients and makes very clean, professional-looking yogurt drops. These include probiotics, making them a healthy option for hamsters. However, you should only feed them to your hamster about once a week at most.
The recipe is a bit more involved despite only having two ingredients. Getting the raspberries into a liquid form to mix with the yogurt is a bit challenging, as is forming the yogurt into small drops. However, you can make tons at once, and these treats save pretty well.
5. Hamster Cakes
| Ingredient: | Flour, milk, water, vegetable oil, banana |
| Difficulty: | Moderate |
It doesn’t get much cuter than this. With just a few ingredients, you can make your hamster banana-flavored pancakes, which make a scrumptious treat. You probably have all of these ingredients lying around your house, too.
While this recipe is very straightforward, it does involve cooking the tiny pancakes just like you would bigger pancakes. However, because they are so tiny, this is a lot easier said than done. This is a recipe that requires a bit more work and effort than others.
However, half the point is to be cute, so you’re putting in the effort for the photo opportunity.
6. Tiny Cake
| Ingredient: | Strawberries, yogurt, whole grain toast |
| Difficulty: | Easy |
You can now celebrate your hamster’s birthday with this tiny strawberry shortcake. You’re going to cut out a cake shape from whole grain bread, which is a healthy option as a regular treat. The icing is Greek yogurt, as hamsters cannot have normal cream or sugar.
The most time-consuming part is “icing” the cake and cutting out the strawberries. However, you can put as little or as much effort into this as you want. The directions include piping and other decorations, but these are completely optional.
Final Thoughts
Some hamster treats are very straightforward and practical. Others take a bit more time but have a huge “cute” factor, which may be attractive to some owners. We included several recipes to choose from so that you can pick the amount of effort you’re looking to put into the homemade hamster treats.
No matter what recipe you choose, be sure to feed it to your hamster occasionally only. These are meant to be treats—not a large portion of your hamster’s diet.
Featured Image Credit: Happy monkey, Shutterstock
