Registered Charity No. 20206484
ADOPT
VOLUNTEER
SURRENDER
Hamster Info Ireland strive to help as many people as possible. Sometimes that means helping people improve their care, find hamsters to love, and sometimes it means helping people who can no longer care for their hamster. If you’re looking to rehome your hamster, please click the button to fill out our surrender form – remember, give us as much information as possible!
WHERE DO OUR HAMSTERS COME FROM?
The hamsters in our care are usually surrendered to us by otherwise good owners who struggled to meet their needs, but we do get some very sad, difficult cases too. The people who surrender their hamsters do so knowing the hamster will be cared for properly until a suitable adoption applicant is approved. We have committed to full transparency, so should the owner choose to contact us regarding their hamster to see how they’re getting on, they can contact us at any time.
We don’t purchase hamsters from advertising platforms like Donedeal or Adverts. We will not pay for hamsters from breeders. We know from experience that this only perpetuates the poor behaviour and funds more backyard breeding in future. These posts are better reported to both the ad platform and the relevant authorities for follow-up action. Most of the time, DoneDeal take immediate action on reports when worded correctly.
In your report you should include the following points as relevant to this specific case:
• The animals are being kept in poor conditions.
• There is no proof that the animals have been bred ethically, unethically bred hamsters are prone to illness.
• The seller has not included the age of the animals in the description (this is a legal requirement), it is illegal to sell or supply animals under the age of 8 weeks.
• Mention that there is no proof that the seller is registered with the Dept. of Agriculture, another legal requirement when you sell 6 or more animals in one year. Seeing as hamsters give birth to large litters, selling even one litter would require registration more often than not.
We only take hamsters from ads where they meet our risk assessment criteria and are surrendered at no charge to the charity. Where we have the capacity, we will from time to time approach these breeders about surrendering their hamsters to us, but we find that most are motivated by profit and not finding the best homes for their animals so will decline this. This helps us manage our capacity best to help as many hamsters in need as we can without wasting charity resources on resistant cases.
