Trixie 61011 Running wheel, plastic, ø 28 cm (Assorted)

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Smaller dwarf and roborovski breed hamsters don’t require a huge wheel, and something between 16 cm and 18 cm should suffice! This would not be comfortable for larger breeds such as Syrians though, and if your hamster is a portly species you’re best off purchasing a wheel of 20 cm or more. Design Try and decide whether a saucer or wheel is the better design for your hamster. Remember that a larger hamster would require a bigger flying saucer, which could take up a lot of room in their cage. Therefore flying saucers can often be a better choice for smaller hamsters, but it really is up to you.

Kandasamy, R., Calsbeek, J. J., & Morgan, M. M. (2016). Home cage wheel running is an objective and clinically relevant method to assess inflammatory pain in male and female rats. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 263, 115-122. A related exercise device is a running disc. This is a rotatable shallow bowl, or slightly concave disc, which is set an angle to the horizontal. [40] Some commercial refuges for caged rodents have a disc mounted on the roof at a slight angle. The rodents run on the rim of the disc in a similar way to running in hamster wheels. Rayner, Matthew (2004). Hamster. Milwaukee, Wis.: Gareth Stevens. ISBN 9780836846171 . Retrieved 21 June 2020.

To provide a suitable environment and to protect hamsters from pain and suffering the following changes need to be made so that pet keepers are not breaking the law:

De Bono, J. P., D. Adlam, D. J. Paterson, and K. M. Channon. 2005. Novel quantitative phenotypes of exercise training in mouse models. American Journal of Physiology. Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology 290:R926–R934. A related exercise device, the hamster ball, is a hollow plastic ball into which a pet can be temporarily placed. The ball allows the pet to freely roll around on the floor to explore and exercise while preventing escape. Raichlen, D. A., A. D. Foster, G. L. Gerdeman, A. Sellier, and A. Giuffrida. 2012. Wired to run: exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and cursorial mammals with implications for the 'runner's high'. Journal of Experimental Biology 215:1331-1336.

Garland, T., Jr., H. Schutz, M. A. Chappell, B. K. Keeney, T. H. Meek, L. E. Copes, W. Acosta, C. Drenowatz, R. C. Maciel, G. van Dijk, C. M. Kotz, and J. C. Eisenmann. 2011. The biological control of voluntary exercise, spontaneous physical activity and daily energy expenditure in relation to obesity: human and rodent perspectives. Journal of Experimental Biology 214:206-229.

This article is about the exercise device for rodents. For the Australian television satirical comedy series, see The Hamster Wheel. Wooden Hamster Wheel, size 33cm Like other rodents, hamsters are highly motivated to run in wheels.