Tomatoes are a staple of our everyday life. So many sauces, salads and sandwiches require them. It’s hard to imagine a life without tomatoes. Incidentally, it’s also hard to imagine a life without our wonderful furry friends! We need to make sure that they are healthy, and this means feeding them the correct foods. So can hamsters eat tomatoes? Yes! You just need to be extremely careful as the green parts of the tomato are toxic for your hamster.
This post will be looking at all of the questions that you may ask surrounding this topic. What is tomato? Can Hamsters eat it? How do you feed it to them? As well as the important question of how much to feed them. Enjoy!
Tomatoes are practically a staple of our everyday life. They originated in the Americas and can be put in salads, sauces, sandwiches and so much more! It’s so versatile and has so many products, which we will be going into later. You have almost certainly eaten this food before!
Yes! Hamsters can absolutely eat tomato, they are likely to be big fans of it as well. You just need to make sure that tomato is fed to your furry friend in amounts that are reasonable for their size. You could face some problems if you don’t. Make sure that the tomato is:
- Washed – To avoid pesticides, which can damage the health of your furry friend
- Unsalted/Sweetened – Salt and sweeteners can be dangerous for your pet
- Plain – Not in any sauces or yoghurts
Furthermore, make sure that you don’t feed any of the green parts to your hamster. These parts are toxic and could cause serious issues for your pet
When you are giving treats, such as tomato, to your hamster, always make sure you are holding them or make sure that you are close to them. This is because giving treats to your hamster can strengthen your bond and assist in socializing them. Only give a small amount to your hamster at first, this is to figure out if they like this red fruit. There’s no point giving your hamster a lot of it if they just ignore it! Your hamster might put the food in their cheek poaches though.
Make sure that you wash the tomato before giving it to your hamster! This removes any worries about pesticides or other nasties hurting your pet!
See also Can Hamsters eat Mangoes?
Ensure that you don’t feed any of the green parts of the tomato to your hamster. It is known to be hamster and can therefore harm your pet.
Consider feeding tomato to your hamster as part of a diet including treats like pumpkin seeds, cabbage and carrots! Lots of fruit and vegetables are great for your ham!
The amount of tomato that you can feed your furry friend really does depend on their breed. Syrians are larger, and can, therefore, eat more, whilst Robos and Dwarfs cannot eat as much. Let’s look at the various breeds and their recommended dosage of this lovely fruit.
Tomato is a problematic treat if you feed too much. So you must only feed a small amount, to ensure that your Syrian stays nice and healthy. Give them around half a teaspoon of tomato every week. This is enough so them to feel the benefits, but not too much!
Robo hamsters can eat tomato but, as I am sure you can appreciate, they can’t eat as much! They are smaller and therefore simply cannot enjoy it as much as a Syrian. Therefore you should give them half a teaspoon of tomato every 2 weeks.
Dwarf hamsters, including Chinese, Campbell, and Russian hamsters, are much smaller than the average hamster. This leads to people wondering if hamsters can eat normal stuff. They can eat Tomato, however, it should be a tiny piece of tomato every week.
There’s plenty of benefits to tomatoes, and hamsters can eat them. Which is good considering how much we eat them! But do these benefits apply for hamsters as well? Absolutely! There are some great benefits to tomatoes for your furry friend, these include:
- Vitamin C – This benefits your furry friend’s immune system and overall health!
- Potassium – This helps regulate your pet’s blood pressure and keeps them healthy!
- Folate – This helps your hamster grow during their life.
- Vitamin K – This helps your furry friend’s blood clot
- Dietary Fibres – This helps your hamster’s digestive system
Although, as you can clearly tell, there’s lots of benefits to tomato, but there are some risks if you overfeed this delicious red fruit to your furry friend! Here’s some of the risks:
- High acidity – Tomato has a lot of acid in it, this can cause issues for your furry friend if you feed too much.
- Choking – Make sure to cut the tomato into small pieces.
- Obesity – Too much of any food can cause serious problems, including obesity, in your hamster.
- Nutritional Issues – Hamsters will eat a lot, but they always get full! Too much tomato can mean that there’s not enough for everyone else.
- Green Parts – The green parts of the tomato are toxic. Don’t feed it to your hamster.
See also Can Hamsters Eat Pomegranate? Some Important Things To Consider 
Hamsters can eat tomatoes, but tomatoes are present in so many products. So it makes sense to wonder if this changes the answer to the original question. The answer is really yes and no. It depends on the product! Let’s see!
No! It’s too salty and has lots of additional things that can hurt your friend
We don’t recommend giving your hamster passata, it’s too liquidy and doesn’t have all of the nutrients!
These should be fine, you shouldn’t need to cut them away from the tomato.
Don’t give hamsters tomato soup, it has too much liquid and doesn’t have a lot of nutrients.
You shouldn’t give your furry friend any kind of juice! This is because of the lack of nutrients in the juice.
As you can see, hamsters can eat tomatoes! You just need to make sure that you feed it in the right amounts, as there can be issues if you don’t. This post has, hopefully, answered all of your questions on this food, as well as if it is safe for your furry friend to enjoy it. We’ve looked at how to give your hamster tomato, the benefits, and risks, and how much to give your hamster. You need to ensure that you give them the right amount! You can’t feed your hamster tomato juice, soup or passata. But you can give them tomato seeds!
