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You can feed hamsters almonds sparingly as long as they are sweet almonds (the type used for snacking).

It is important that you never give a hamster a bitter almond (which is smaller but broader than a sweet almond and used mainly in cooking) as it contains a toxic amount of hydrogen cyanide which can be lethal to small animals.

A handful of bitter almonds is enough to poison a human, so it is unlikely you will need to worry if you buy your almonds from a snack section of a store as any bitter ones that do make it to these packs will have been processed to have the hydrogen cyanide removed.

The only other concern is that giving your hamster too many can be bad as they are high in fat content. Although they are high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (the good ones) and low in saturated fats (the bad ones), too many can still cause obesity and therefore lead to problems.

My fiancé and I had a black and white syrian hamster called Smudge, who loved almonds and we gave him 2-3 a week as a treat and he lived until he was 3, so they're not harmful as long as you don't give them too much and don't use the bitter type.

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14y ago

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