What is the best place to get a hamster - Petsmart or Petco?

Try looking for a breeder, they have the best hamsters, health wise.

my friend got her hamsterr at petstore in a mall and she is living hapilly with her still and she has been living for a about a year no sign of sickness or anything but i also suggest petsmart since they always have happy and healthy creatures if you dont want from a breeder :)

best of luck! :)

I wudnt go to either one, I wud look in my local paper for one, or even better a breeder of one, that’s the best places I have found, good luck

Petsmart.

Petsmart.

I hate petsmart & petco. PETA. -_- but I’d say petco. Their customer service is better. & their cheaper. For some stupid annoyingly odd reason at petsmart, they call some of their rodents, fancy. Fancy mouse. Fancy dwarf hamster. Fancy Teddy bear hamster. Fancy rat. & then they make it more expensive. Also, at petsmart their rodents look sickly, well here atleast. So, I’d go with petco. There’s even some animal shelters with hamsters, & that’d probably be even better. But in the end, it usually doesn’t even matter where you got it from.

i got hamster at petco which either i think is the same but we just go to the one thats closest to us. they are pretty much the same thing just different names

Well the thing is there is pros and cons to what EVERYONE is saying. Petsmart here is terrible. They sold me sick mice that actually transfered over to my rat, gave her a respatory infection (yes I took a rat to the vet) which she had to clear up before I could get her tumor removed.. Granted with the strain of her tumor and the infection, even with anti biotics she died. Petsmart wouldn’t let me return the mice, addmitted to no fault. Yada yada. Petco has always been a lot nicer here. Though the employees are dumb shits and it’s still just like any other petstore. Typically they have a 2 week health thing where you can bring the animal back. Which you will not get from a private party.

If you’re getting one second hand, then you need to watch out for how old they are. Typically if someone is re-homing a pet that small it’s because they are tired of it nor ever wanted it in the first place meaning they bought it at a petstore when it was a baby. Which is what petsmart and petco sell (babys) by now it’s older and lack of attention has made it unmanageable.

Breeders by far don’t always have the best health. And when we’re talking about hamster breeding, it’s never on purpose. Nobody should be breeding hamsters on purpose. There are enough small rodents that don’t have homes. So typically you have a irresponsibile pet owner that got a male and female on purose to see what would happen. Who probably don’t know anything about breeding.