The study of different feed on growth and behaviour of hamster, Phodopus sungorus

Nowadays as there are many pet owners prefer to feed their hamster with commercial hamster food mix (processed feed) with the reason of convenient, yet it is not 100% proven that it is really a healthy diet for hamster. Hence, this project was carry out with the aims of determine does processed feed brings benefit to the growth of hamster if compare with fresh vegetables, fruits and legumes (fresh feed), and by using different feed will it affect the behaviour of hamster. Eight Djungarian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) are divided equally into two groups, one group is feed with processed feed while another group is feed with fresh feed. Furthermore each group of the hamster are divide again into two pair of hamster which consist of one male and one female only living in a cage to test their fertility, thus total up there are four cages of hamster in this project. Result shown hamsters that eat processed feed had gained weight significantly which is 19.616g for male and 16.029g for female. While for hamster that consuming fresh feed, they showed slighter increase of body weight which is 6.406g for male and 4.538g for female. Thus by only feeding hamster with processed feed can cause obesity to the hamster and feeding hamster with fresh feed will not stimulate obesity problem for the hamster. The mortality rate of the hamsters are 0% and the fertility of hamster is also 0% in fresh feed group of hamster meantime in processed feed group is 50%. The active behaviour are obviously shown in hamsters that eat fresh feed compared with processed feed meanwhile the reasons for the hamster has such behavioural responses in the cage are because they tend to escape from the cage and wanted to explore the environment around. Besides, the hamster that feed with fresh feed are believe to be more content and happy when compared with processed feed hamster by showing more grooming behaviour. Broadly the result also demonstrate the relation between body weight and activeness of hamster, it is believe that the body weight of hamster could influence the activeness of hamster