Click to Skip Ahead Hamsters Are Omnivores Do Hamsters Like Crickets? Benefits of Crickets Downfalls of Crickets How to Serve Crickets How Many Crickets Can Hamsters Eat? Keeping/Breeding Crickets Disclaimer: Before changing your hamster’s diet or introducing new ingredients or supplements that they haven’t eaten before, especially when it comes to human food, make sure to consult your veterinarian first. Every animal is different and requires an individual approach to nutrition, depending on their age, health, level of activity, and medical history. The guidelines offered in our article have been fact-checked and approved by a veterinarian but should be used as a mere guide on food safety, rather than an individual nutrition plan. If you’re used to buying your hamster a premade bag of commercial food, you might not understand the exciting variety of items you could put on their menu. In addition to fruits and vegetables, how about insects such as crickets? Hamsters are omnivorous little creatures that delight in animal and plant products. Crickets are no exception. Hamsters can absolutely indulge in crickets. In fact, if you haven’t added crickets to your list of hammy snacks, it’s a perfect time to start! Hamsters Are Omnivores One thing you might not know about a hamster is that they are omnivores. After all, you’re simply dishing out a couple of premade pellets in their dish every day and not live animals or insects—so, it’s easy to forget! Being omnivorous means that hamsters rely on a diet supplemented with protein sources. You can add some insects, including crickets, to your rotation of hamster treats but keep in mind, as always, too much can be a problem. Store bought insects are preferred over wild ones to avoid contaminants. Do Hamsters Like Crickets? Hamsters will generally like crickets very much, but this can vary based on the individual. Some will come running up to their cage for a cricket while others may not like the taste. Image Credit: Sophie Sparks Photography, Shutterstock Benefits of Crickets for Hamsters Crickets are full of nutritious goodness for your hammy. Here are the perks of adding these little hopping insects to the menu. Protein Crickets have quite a plentiful bounty of protein, which can add to your hamster’s health. On average, 15-25% of your hamster’s diet should consist of protein. It works to promote muscle mass and healthy body functions. Energy Your hamster will get a boost of energy from eating high-protein snacks like crickets. Crickets contain amino, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids for an authentic meal! Fiber Crickets contain a large amount of fiber which helps your hamster’s system run smoothly. It aids in digestion, ensuring the gut flora stays balanced, and your little hammy is passing enough waste. Vitamins and Minerals Crickets contain valuable vitamins and minerals like potassium, magnesium, copper, folic acid, riboflavin, and biotin.   Downfalls of Crickets for Hamsters Even though hamsters are nutritious and desirable for your hamster, there are some things to consider. Here are a few risks or negatives, but luckily, they’re preventable. Live Crickets Can Bite Live crickets can damage your hamster if they really want to. While your hammy certainly has the upper hand in the situation, that doesn’t mean the cricket won’t try to defend themselves. Since hamsters can shove so much food inside their cheeks, a live cricket wouldn’t really be something you’d want them to stow there. Potential Choking Hazard Crickets can be pretty big sometimes. Depending on the size of your hamster, a cricket could just be a big choking hazard. If you feel the cricket is large for your hammy, try to piece it apart before serving. Image Credit: mordilla-net, Pixabay How to Serve Crickets to Your Hamster You can serve a hamster crickets in a few different ways. Your hamster might have a preference, or you could have some concerns about feeding them live insects. Here’s a little bit about each method of serving crickets to your hamster. Dried Crickets Dried crickets are already dead, so not only can the cricket not bite your hammy or struggle, but you won’t have to do any of the work to prepare them. Your hamster may love munching down on them, but they could easily get lodged in the cheek pouches because of the dryness. This could lead to cheek pouch impaction and infections. Rehydrated Crickets Instead of feeding your hamster dried crickets, you can always add a little water so they can soak up some extra moisture. This allows the cricket to soften, which makes it easier to swallow. Live Crickets Live crickets are one of the healthiest ways to serve crickets to your hamster. That is because all of the nutrients are still intact. However, crickets can bite hamsters, which can lead to injury. It’s always best to end the cricket’s life before you place it in the cage with your hamster. This way, no harm can come to your hamster, and the cricket won’t die gruesomely. It’s a win for everybody. Image Credit: Vladimir Wrangel, Shutterstock How Many Crickets Can Hamsters Eat? The number of crickets you feed your hamster should be carefully determined based on their size and dietary needs. It’s most appropriate to ask a veterinarian or other professional for guidance based on your personal circumstances. However, a dwarf hamster, for example, will eat fewer crickets than a teddy bear hamster. Too many crickets can lead to weight gain and obesity due to their high protein and fat content. It would be best to remember that crickets are a supplemental food to add to their regular diet. Hamster pellets are explicitly designed with all the nutrients your hamster needs to stay healthy. If you give a hamster a buffet of options, they will likely choose the foods that appeal most to them, leaving the rest to sit or spoil. If your hamster is overeating one thing, it can upset their digestive system or cause nutritional imbalances. Keeping/Breeding Crickets Buying crickets at the pet store can get expensive after a while. Instead of continually buying again and again, you can breed crickets yourself. Many resources are online to guide you through the steps to make your own cricket breeding farm. If you have the time, space, and energy to do so, it might be a more financially beneficial option if you plan to keep up regular feedings. Also, if you have other animals in the home, such as a reptile or an amphibian that eat insects, it can be a double reward! Conclusion You can add some yummy, juicy crickets to your hamster’s diet if you haven’t already. Remember, hamsters can enjoy more than just crickets! Try out other popular insects like mealworms, dubia roaches, and other pet store favorites. If you want to keep or breed crickets, you can set up a mini cricket farm to save money. If not, the pet store always has some of these insects available. Avoid wild caught insects just in case they have come into contact with something harmful for your hamster. Sources https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2020.537915/full https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/rodents/hamsters/diet https://www.petmd.com/exotic/general-health/how-keep-hamster-teeth-healthy   Featured Image Credit: Sophie Sparks Photography, Shutterstock The post Can Hamsters Eat Crickets? Vet Approved Facts & Nutrition Tips appeared first on PangoVet.

The Paris 2024 Olympics will be known for its many bizarre scandals. The entire event felt upside down, backward, like a festival in Opposite Land. From the blasphemy of radicals to the unprecedented use of AI-guided mass surveillance to the nasty outcomes of gender ideology, there was a darkness looming over the games. Then, caught in the maelstrom of it all, there was Snoop Dogg. He wound up being far more than a cultural ambassador. He was everywhere. He was actually having fun, full of energy and curiosity. And it wasn’t just because he was making $500,000 a day. So it surprised nobody to see Snoop center stage at the Place de la Concorde for the breakdancing competition, which is basically interpretive dance with trash-talking and good music. Snoop conducted the traditional “three ground strikes” ritual that preceded every single Olympic event this year. He strutted out in his customized Skechers. Breakdancing, also known as breaking, was among the final events of the 2.5-week games. This year also marked its first appearance in the Olympics. The commentators gushed about how history was being made by the inclusion of breaking at the Olympics and how it was part of the sport’s “groundbreaking journey.” And they aren’t wrong. How did a music-driven subculture combining Russian folk dance with rap music wind up in the Olympics? The whole competition was bizarre and completely uncalled for. I loved it. I couldn’t decide if it was over the top politically correct (it definitely was) or beautifully subversive. Or just, well, lame and inauthentic. Breaking badly Qualifying took place in a round-robin competition, in which two opponents faced off in a battle, which is the technical term for the dance-off. Each battle is a fight over 18 points, allocated by judges. The women’s breakdance event featured girls from all over the world. There was even one from the Olympic Refugee Team (Talash). Ironically, she was disqualified for donning a cape with political messaging. Among the 16 “Breaking Bad-girls” was Raygun, the Australian "cultural studies" professor who performed worse than any other breakdancer. She started breaking in her mid-20s, which is apparently a late start; many of these dancers began honing their craft in early adolescence. At that age, Raygun (government name Rachael Gunn) was focusing on tap and jazz. Her husband, Samuel Free, is her coach. He had been into breakdancing for a while when they met and convinced her to give it a try. She intertwined breakdancing with her academic career, then eventually began to compete in international events. In 2023, she qualified for the Olympics. Even her students didn’t believe her. As the announcer put it when the 36-year-old athlete stomped out to the stage, “Dr. Rachel Gunn. University lecturer by day, B-girl by night, and now an Olympian.” It was a rocky debut. In her first battle, she faced Logistix, the 21-year-old B-girl who began breaking when she was 7 years old. Raygun's dancing here reminded me of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” dance scenes, like this one. If she had danced like that at a wedding reception, she’d have been a massive hit. For her second performance, Raygun yawned with performative boredom. (This classifies as a power move.) The commentator, with impressive kindness, complimented her for “starting a conversation.” Each B-girl had three chances to score. Raygun didn’t score a single point. Zero. Unanimous. To some, this was like failing out of clown school. But what’s more impressive is that by tanking, Raygun actually legitimized the sport. She separated it from the inclusive and overly interpretive art form. This was the most postmodern Olympics to date. In her failure, Raygun won adulation. “It’s all about commitment,” said one of the announcers during Raygun’s disastrous routine. “Dance is all about character, all about showing who you are.” Her political compass is nuts. She’s practically the Robin DiAngelo of hip-hop culture. Or maybe Rachel Dolezal. As an academic, her politics align with the leftist wing of the academic class. He dissertation examines "the intersection of gender and Sydney's breaking culture." Her type tend to be pretentious, unbearable, nasty. They relish their control as gatekeepers. But they seem to have lost their authority over coolness. Still, is Raygun’s political orientation bad enough to justify the trolling she’s faced? Most of the mockery just seemed mean. Raygun never forced politics into any of it — either in her performance or its weird viral spillover. She posted a quote on Instagram: "don't be afraid to be different, go out there and represent yourself, you never know where that's gonna take you" Wreck the technique Meanwhile America walked away from the Olympics with a single bronze medal in the sport/art form it invented Competitive breakdancing has official guidelines and metrics. Judges assess breakdancers according to five criteria: technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality, and originality, all of which require coordination, flexibility, rhythm, and style. “Vocabulary” denotes the breakdancers' variability in moves. “Style” is a measure of uniqueness. Every breakdancer is expected to have a distinctly personal approach to moving around. Part of this is attitude, the performative confidence a B-boy or B-girl exudes. For all of these reasons, breaking was a difficult sport for the Olympics, although there are plenty of judge-determined competitions, many of which also involve an artistic and creative style. “Repeating,” for example, is when one of the breakdancers reuses a move already performed. There are flips, leaps, and spins, including the famous head spin trick. Or the “freeze,” another common maneuver, which requires the breakdancer to stop abruptly in order to seem stunned mid-air. All of these are officially classified as “power moves.” Which is hilarious. Fear of a wack planet Before Raygun vanishes from the public consciousness, we should talk about the future of Olympic breakdancing. It may not have one. It won’t be part of the the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, which will feature flag football and squash, as well as the re-emergence of softball and baseball. But breakdancing paired well with the unhinged weirdness of the 2024 Olympics. I hope it sticks around. Dancing is hard, but worthwhile. It takes a lot of courage to dance. To practice dancing is as strange as it is to practice talking. “This dance really does bring the world together,” says one of the commentators for the women’s qualifying breakdance. Maybe it sounds hokey. Maybe it’s easy to laugh at. But who cares? Dancing is our oldest human voice. Dancing is an expression of vitality. Throughout history, it has been an act of youthful defiance. Dance is galvanic; it bursts and springs. Maybe it's that dancing feels so perfect. To dance is to forget, to forget the intoxicating whirl of life, in the place you fell, in the same untucked schedule of each day you thought you knew, guided always by something that can only be called “belief.” To dance is to fall apart in front of everyone. To dance is to break open. To dance is to cry in public. To dance is to be a freak show in undiscovered territory, a place where everyone is freakish and on display yet happy to have company. To dance is to pretend a new backstory.

Dual-mode gaming monitors that can offer 4k resolution but then downscale to 1080p at a high refresh rate are nothing new. However, the new Alienware AW2725QF offers something different to most, as it provides this combination not at a giant 32-inch screen size but in a more compact 27-inch frame. That means this new best gaming monitor contender will offer not only an ultra-sharp 163 pixels per inch in 4k mode but a less blocky-looking view at 1080p than on 32-inch panels. The smaller screen size should also mean Alienware's latest can be cheaper than other competing options, such as the Asus PG32UCDP, but the company hasn't put a price on this panel yet. Continue reading Alienware’s new 4k gaming monitor can hit 360Hz, but with a twist MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card, Best gaming PC, Best SSD for gaming

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Eric Schmidt. | Photo By Lukas Schulze/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images Former Google CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt has made headlines for saying that Google was blindsided by the early the rise of ChatGPT because its employees decided that “working from home was more important than winning.” The comment was made in front of Stanford students during a recent interview, video of which was removed from the university’s YouTube channel after Schmidt’s gaffe was widely picked up by the press. I managed to watch most of Schmidt’s chat with Stanford’s Erik Brynjolfsson before it was taken down, however, and something else he said stands out. (You can still read the full transcript here.) While talking about a future world in which AI agents can do complex tasks on behalf of humans, Schmidt says: If TikTok is... Continue reading…

"Bridgerton," set in Regency London during the early 1800s, presents a stylized view of the period. Although it reflects some aspects of historical life, the series diverges significantly from the reality of the time. The Regency era, officially spanning from 1811 to 1820, was marked by complex social norms and economic practices. While "Bridgerton" includes historical elements like the social season, which was a period of intense social activity from February to June, it often romanticizes and alters these elements for dramatic effect. Take an Eye-Opening Journey into the Past: Top 10 Historical TV Series 7 Ancient Love Stories That Shook the World The series features elaborate balls and social gatherings, mirroring the actual Regency season where elite families brokered marriages to secure wealth and influence. However, the show’s portrayal of marriage and romance simplifies the era's complex dynamics, where marriages were primarily strategic rather than based on personal affection.            Read moreSection: NewsGeneralVideosHistoryRead Later 

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