Can hamsters eat peas? Yes, hamsters can eat peas because they provide essential nutrients your hamster needs to stay healthy and active. But, you shouldn’t feed peas regularly because the high amounts of sugar, fat, and salt can make your hamster sick.
Making an informed decision is always better than regretting your pet’s loss. Keep reading to know the pros and cons of feeding peas to hamsters along with the safe amount they can eat without any negative consequences.
Benefits of Peas for Hamsters
Peas provide hamsters with fibers, vitamin B6, iron, folate, and magnesium. The benefits of feeding peas to your hamsters are mentioned below:
- Peas are rich sources of fibers, especially dietary fibers. Hamsters need fiber to regulate their bowel movements for good digestive health.
- Vitamin B6 plays a role in maintaining the health of skin and nerves and controlling the production of red blood cells, which are crucial to protect your hamster from anemia.
- Folate is essential for producing red and white blood cells in the body. Both these cells are necessary for the good health status of your hamster.
- Iron helps your hamster avoid anemia by producing hemoglobin and red blood cells.
- Magnesium keeps the bones of your hamster strong. It’s a strong antioxidant and protects from joint and bone health issues like osteoporosis or arthritis.
Risks of Feeding Peas to Your Hamster
Peas contain salt, sugar, and fats. These nutrients don’t harm your hamster if their amount is carefully checked. If you feed peas to your hamsters regularly, the levels of these nutrients will rise in your hamster’s body, which can cause many health problems. The health issues that can occur due to overfeeding of peas are:
How Much Peas Should Hamsters Eat?
Portion control is very important, not just for peas but for every meal. Hamsters need a variety of nutrients to stay healthy, and by feeding the same food, the same nutrients will accumulate in its body. Hence, your hamster will suffer due to the excessive amount of nutrients in peas and the absence of nutrients that it gets from other food items.
You must decide the safe amount of peas you can feed your hamster before introducing it to this food item. The safe amount of peas depends upon the breed type of hamsters.
Syrian hamsters are big, so you can give them about 6 peas each week without any side effects. Robo hamsters are smaller than Syrian hamsters, so they can eat 3 peas per week. Dwarf hamsters are very small, and they won’t be able to handle peas even in smaller amounts. So, you should avoid feeding this food item to them.
How to Give Peas to Your Hamster?
Precaution is always better than cure and you should never forget this when it’s about your hamster. Your pet has a fragile body and won’t be able to tolerate any unsuitable food item or even healthy food item if it’s not offered to them the right way. Although peas are good for hamsters, don’t forget these preventive measures to keep them good for your hamster:
- Always wash the peas to remove the pesticides because they are toxic for your hamster.
- You should never give peas dipped in sauces or juices to your hamsters because both aren’t healthy for them.
- Don’t add salt to the peas before giving them to your hamster because salt isn’t safe for your hamster.
FAQs
Frozen peas can be hard to swallow by your furry buddy, so you should avoid them. Fresh and soft peas are safe for hamsters.
You can feed dried peas to all the hamster breeds except dwarf hamsters. They are too small to chew or break peas into pieces for eating.
Hamsters can’t eat pea soup because it’s too liquid for them. Solid foods are recommended for hamsters because they can consume easily. Liquid diets are not only hard to eat but don’t even stay in your hamster’s body.
Hamsters and Peas in a Nutshell
Ready to make your hamster happy by giving them peas as a treat? Don’t forget to follow the precautions to keep them safe and healthy for your hamster! The rule of thumb for you is to avoid any kind of seasoning before serving peas to your hamster.
