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My hamster Joe died in my hand a week ago, and I went and got a new one since I can't bear to have an empty space where the hamster cage is. I got a really fat golden teddy bear hamster, one of three sisters in her cage. She was much more docile than the others, who all immediately ran up to bite my hand when I put it in the cage(that's my test, I go for the ones whose first instinct ISN'T to bite as hard as they can as soon as they see your hand). I haven't named her yet, but she's adorable.    She likes to sleep in awkward and painful-looking positions.   But the real kicker, I went to pick her up a few minutes ago, she was sleeping on her side and something was moving. She woke up and quickly covered it.  I tapped on the glass on the other side of the cage to distract her, and my jaw dropped when I saw five newborn baby hamsters in her nest, blindly writhing around and opening their mouths a lot.      tiny pink sausages.I called the pet shop, and they were greatly amused, and told me that I don't really need to do anything to care for them, mom will do the work, I just need to provide a lot of food for her. I'm being overwhelmed by the cuteness! It also explains why she became somewhat aggressive in the past two days. Man I hope she doesn't eat her babies though, that would be a total bummer.
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Jul 18, 2012 23:14
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Fraction posted:Be careful not to disturb the mum too much. Iirc, hamsters are supposed to be even worse mothers than mice, which seem to cannibalise at the drop of a hat sometimes. Make sure you give her protein-rich food. Something a lot of mouseries use is bread dipped in milk for new and expecting mothers, too. Yeah, I only replaced her food and water when she was asleep, and very carefully so as not to wake her. Her food is normal mixed stuff, I assume no nuts or protein-rich stuff in that(pellets don't have that either right), I'm lactose intolerant and so there's no "real" milk in the house, would Lactaid work or would that not be safe for her? So far she's taking great care of her babies. Is there a point when she will no longer try to eat them, or is it just a newborn thing for some reason?
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Jul 19, 2012 21:21
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Fraction posted:I'm not sure about Lactaid, but I'd definitely increase her protein somehow. You could get a little bag of low protein puppy kibble (think really poor quality puppy food), or a small tub of mealworms, and some more seeds to mix into her food. She needs plenty of protein and fatty stuff so she can produce milk for the bubs. Sounds good. The food mix I get my hamsters always has a ton of sunflower, melon, pumpkin, etc seeds, some beans, and a small amount of food pellets. I'll give a look into finding some of the stuff you described for her. Thanks! 
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Jul 20, 2012 00:13
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I was thinking the mealworms might be a good idea instead of the bread(since I don't want her to store it somewhere it might get moldy), would these ones be good for her, and how many should I feed her at once? Are they something I can provide her as a regular snack, or should they only be for the initial nursing period? I can go grab them real quick if these are suitable for a hamster and not just the reptiles/fish it says they're for. http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11785679
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Jul 20, 2012 23:19
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Fraction posted:E: this would be better - http://m.petsmart.com/mt/www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3876126
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Jul 21, 2012 01:10
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The mealworms I got were very small, and a few escaped the tweezers and fell into the cage, will they be a problem or will she hunt them down and eat them? I gave her around a dozen tiny ones and she inhaled them, barely even spending time eating them. edit: whoops, double post
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Jul 21, 2012 01:38
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I would suggest getting a bag of Carefresh, ditch the wood shavings and see if that changes anything.
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Jul 22, 2012 03:16
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Tumors on rodents are the worst. But if it definitely was not there before, while tumors grow fast on rodents, I doubt they grow that fast. Are you sure it's not a fluid-filled sac or abscess of some sort? Also, I just took a 12 minute video of the baby hamsters all in a pile, occasionally sleeping, occasionally dogpiling on each other and flinging whoever's on top off quite bodily, some yawning, all adorableness. They've more than doubled in size since they were born four days ago, and their eyes are beginning to show the slit of where the eyelids will split. They've also become quite vocal, crying out fairly often, loud enough that it woke me once even with my sound machine on. I have muted the audio because it's mostly background noise and a loud CLUNK when I accidentally hit the camera on the cage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1iljZSzTP0
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Jul 22, 2012 20:46
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One of the babies just took a poop the mom pooped out in her sleep and started chowing down on it. I assume that's safe for the babies to do that when they're five days old?Fraction posted:Definitely a tumor, options were attempt to operate (even vet advised against this based on size and location), leave it or pts. I opted to pts. 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Jul 24, 2012 |
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Jul 24, 2012 02:29
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Oh my gooooood, the babies have started escaping the nest and blindly stumbling around the cage. It's overwhelming! I am assuming I can't hold the mom until at least a few weeks after they're born, right? I like to take my hamsters out and feed them fruit from my hand, so that they eat it right there and don't try to store it away in their cage somewhere(I had one do this, it created a big blob of mold in the cage). Any tips for getting her used to me, I only just got her before she gave birth, so she didn't really get a chance to acclimate and flattens her ears to her head and gets low to the ground whenever she sees me. I also have some more videos if folks are interested, mostly of them nursing, one chewing on some Carefresh and another kicking mom repeatedly in the nose while she was sleeping, and unfortunately I was not able to get video of one of the black-fur babies escaping the nest and blindly crawling all the way across the cage before getting lost and we had to goad mom to go get him. I thought she'd grab him by the nape of the neck, but no, she put his entire stomach area in her mouth and hauled him in the air above her head back to the nest while he flailed around.
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Jul 24, 2012 22:47
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Yeah, I've been putting my hand in the cage cupped upside down full of food since day 1, and she's often been very curious about my hand in between grabbing sunflower seeds out of the food. The litter so far is two absolutely huge pink ones, one medium pink one, and two small black ones. You'll see one of the colossal pinkies in the next couple videos, he's like half again the size of the black ones and super fat.
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Jul 24, 2012 22:55
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The smallest of the black pups died a few minutes ago. I went to watch them since mom was eating on the other side of the cage again, and noticed one wasn't moving, it was the one who had been crawling around outside the nest, and is also the one who I saw suckling on the pad of mom's front foot. He probably got shoved out of feeding by his much larger siblings, now that I've put 2 and 2 together. I guess I'll keep an eye out for the other black one, who while not as small, is still smaller than the three pink ones. I managed to sneak in with a pair of tweezers and pick him out before mom could eat him, I'm glad I discovered him before she did.
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Jul 25, 2012 01:26
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I've got a bunch of videos and hopefully will have time to convert them this weekend. The babies are 9 days old now, escape the nest a bunch, and now have started eating a lot of solid food(pellets, corn, one tried to eat a sunflower seed but decided the shell didn't taste good). Their eyes should be open by tomorrow morning, and I've been feeding mom from my hand since day 1, so she's alright with my hand being near the babies, even letting me pet and hold them for short periods while she's there. One question though, one baby managed to get a large, round yellow seed in his pouch and doesn't seem to be able to get it out. Should I leave him and he'll hopefully get it out on his own, or should I try and do it myself? He's been trying to get it out for ten minutes now.
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Jul 28, 2012 00:57
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Alright, the babies are now 14 days old, eyes open, fur growing in rapidly, starting to drink from the water bottle, not taking any of mom's poo poo(when she tries to pick them up they bite her, no wonder considering the way she picks them up). But a problem has arisen, they have begun to fight a lot. Is this normal for pups? They fight a real lot, and they fight dirty, biting each others crotches and ears and such. One of them has begun attacking the mom herself, often while she's sleeping/nursing, he'll run up and bite her nose or tail or pry open her lips and bite her teeth(wtf). All of them are mild-mannered when taken out of the cage except for one, whom I've named "Bitey", and I believe is the main perpetrator of the sibling violence(all three tan ones look exactly the same so I can't be sure). The black one, Chip, has often been the brunt of multiple attackers at once. Are they in any real danger, or is it just play fighting? They bite hard enough to hang onto their victim when picked up, and I tend to break it up whenever I hear them squeaking a lot(indicating fighting). They're not supposed to be fully weaned until 21 days, correct? Is it safe to separate them now, and do I need to only keep one per cage? I'll have to do the videos some other time. There are hours of video to dig through. I wish it was easier to convert them and remove the audio, but WMM will have to do, and it's slow as molasses.
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Aug 2, 2012 06:54
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I dunno if you know this, but guinea pigs are pretty gross, you guys. I had them for nearly 15 years, and they just don't give a eff about pooping or peeing everywhere, chewing on everything, or screaming in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason.
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Sep 18, 2012 12:06
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Pew! Pew! posted:The robo hamster I'm taking care of almost escaped today. I was cleaning his cage and he chewed through the temporary carrier (which was a bad idea in retrospect because it's thin cardboard) and I managed to catch him by the leg before he ran under the fridge. Every single Robo I've owned has been a bitey rear end in a top hat. Most hamsters are bitey assholes really, once they actually wake up and get all hyper, they'll chew on basically anything.
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Sep 22, 2012 03:43
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Fraction posted:Hey Captain, what happened with those hamster bubs? Are they all homed now? I really don't mind keeping them all, they're all adorable and sweethearts with each their own personality quirks, I just wish the cages didn't take up so much room. I know, I know, I never did the videos. They're still sitting in a big fat 14 gig pile on my hard drive.
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Sep 23, 2012 15:55
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Fraction posted:I'm not surprised you had to separate them, though it sucks that they were getting along well before that. Five cages must take up a tonne of room, my mice are annoying enough in two I'll take pictures of the cages, they are bog standard aquariums with the water bottles attached to the centers of the mesh tops so that the hamsters can't bang them against the glass for hours on end. Also, the mom absolutely reeks. She seriously smells like she is rotting, but she is fine otherwise. None of the other hamsters smell like that and her cage is the most recently cleaned, what gives? Also, Chip, one of my male hamsters, drinks a third of his water a day and pees all the time. Is this an issue? Or just due to him being the most active of the bunch by far? Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 00:30
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What kind of cages are they all in?
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Pictures! Most of these were taken yesterday, the mom/baby pairing aside. I will so miss seeing the two of them like this.  The babies inherited their mom's tendency to sleep in terribly awkward and painful looking positions. First is mom sleeping like a corpse, while the little girl sleeps with her foot in her ear. Second one is Chip with his neck at a 90 degree angle, and the third is Honeydew and baby in an absolutely ridiculous sleeping position.    The normal male cream-colored hamsters don't have names, neither does the cream colored little girl. Here's a male goose-stepping while stretching(right) and the little girl noticing the camera and me on the left. Second image is of the other male. Both cream males are for the most part super chill.   what  Chip is so goddamn hard to get a good picture of because he's so energetic, but he's by far my favorite of the bunch. 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 07:44
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I tried naming the little girl but I always wind up just calling her "little girl" or "baby" and the two cream-colored males "little dudes". I suppose I could just name them normal people names like I almost always do with my hamsters, and name them Bob, John, and Daphne. Doubt it'd stick, though.
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Sep 24, 2012 09:10
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Yeah when I saw that post I went and looked up average Chin lifespans. 22-25 years? Man, that is insane for a rodent. My condolences, I was heartbroken when Junior, my Methusula-esque Chinese Dwarf Hamster died at the age of 7.5 years, can't imagine what losing an(I'm assuming) relatively young Chin would be like. 
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Oct 1, 2012 06:56
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Is it safe to give my hamsters baths? Like, a scrubbing down with a damp washcloth. I assume so, and obviously I'd dry them afterward, but is it too stressful, or is there a natural alternative like what Robos have with dust? For some reason, for whatever reason, they loving stink. I need to clean their cages, but normally my hamsters never stink like this regardless. The mom flat-out smells like she's dead and I don't know why.
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Oct 3, 2012 |
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Oct 3, 2012 02:40
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I uploaded a bunch more pictures of the hamsters when they were babies and right after their eyes opened. I'll get some bigger albums of them up sometime this week hopefully. http://imgur.com/a/7IU4q edit: my fingernails look all hosed up because of the rare disease I have, Alopecia Universalis. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Oct 8, 2012 |
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Oct 8, 2012 00:22
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One thing I've always said, if you can't stand seeing a pet die horribly, don't get guinea pigs. We've had over a dozen of them over the years and not a single one has died peacefully except the first two. One pooped its intestines out somehow, one started screaming until it died with a rictus on its face, one got a sore on one foot that got infected because it kept literally sitting in where it just peed and after we had to amputate the leg it wouldn't stop chewing itself until it got another infection and died, one died while chewing on its cage bars so we had to pry its rigor mortis'd mouth open to get it off the cage, one was sitting in my sister's lap all happy and chewing a carrot when he suddenly had convulsions for ten minutes and died. Guinea pigs die real bad. Real bad.
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Nov 14, 2012 08:50
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My house is like a sieve so I just keep the heater on in my room most of the time and keep the hamster family in there. If you get a fairly efficient space heater, it shouldn't cost too much extra to heat one room.
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Nov 23, 2012 06:22
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Hamsters can gently caress each other up in seconds if they so choose. And you'll have a bastard of a time separating them before they do some serious damage. The day I separated the momma and daughter was the day I went over to say hi, they both came up to the glass, look at each other, and then just fuckin' WENT AT IT, teeth bared, squeaking loudly, and one took a few good bites out of the other's shoulder before I managed to separate them. Syrians are solitary and don't seem to enjoy anyone's company for very long. It's sad, but that's their disposition.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:29
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Yeah, I am pretty busy nowadays but I'll see about getting some shots of them. It would be fun if I could cup them all in my hands at once like I did a while ago when they were babies for a then/now comparison, but they'd probably just immediately start trying to gently caress/kill each other.
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Dec 4, 2012 10:41
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Saint Darwin posted:Because, you know, little fuzzy demons. Anhy and Tilm, then?
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Dec 4, 2012 22:36
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I took all five of the Hamster Family out for pictures. Some were not happy about it, others were TOO happy about it, and one of the cream colored boys was completely indifferent and bored about it. http://imgur.com/a/x5siy Some of the flash shots make it look like they've got mange or something, that's not the case, they've all got very thick fur. There's a non-flash and flash subsequent shot of one hamster that shows what I mean. Also, I got a shot of the little girl was licking my mousepad for whatever reason, and Chip took a distinct interest in the mouse itself.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:31
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The longhaired hamsters are male Teddy Bears. They grow long hair, especially what I call "butt tufts", to keep their balls warm in cold weather. I did my best to keep balls out of the shots, which is hard, because they're HUGE. And in order of hamsters in the album, it's Honeydew(mom, not happy at all to be out of her cage), Chip(one of two hamsters that were born black, the other one died early on, he was happy to be out and explore), and then two nameless cream-colored males and a nameless cream-colored female who I just call "little girl". The mom and first cream male were both like "I'M OUT" and kept trying to escape while I was taking pictures, the second cream male is just the most laid-back by far and lets me scritch his chin and stuff, and the little girl was most interested in chewing the couch cushion and licking the mousepad. She is a force of nature, and I have to wear rag shirts when I hold her because she can chew a quarter-sized hole in shirts in literally a second. She has done this to three shirts before I could stop her. 
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Dec 5, 2012 10:24
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That ain't thirsty, when mine are really thirsty they'll just shove the whole drat nozzle into their pouch.
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Dec 7, 2012 16:20
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A few days ago, Honeydew jumped out of my hands as I was taking her out of her cage and I basically punted her with my foot in an effort to keep her from hitting the hardwood floor directly. It was a 5 foot drop. She was perfectly fine aside from being a bit shaken up and began crawling around on the floor and exploring like nothing had happened a few seconds later. She's currently dancing back and forth on the side of her cage. Your Robo should be fine, seriously, unless they fall on their head or something, hamsters are pretty resilient.
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Dec 12, 2012 03:34
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A Sloth posted:Well, just split the hamsters cage up. Seems Wulfstan has decided to be an aggressive little toerag and attack Guthrum constantly. If they're fighting a lot, I would suggest against ever putting them together again or giving them the opportunity to reach each other or sense each other, as it'll probably stress them out. My last Robo pair became 1 and a half Robos when one decided he felt like eating the other in the nest. He then died himself from overeating, it seems, as they were both dead when found. Ever since, I've kept to separating hamsters as soon as I get them, the mom/daughter pair was the last time I tried to keep two together, figuring since they were mother/daughter, they would form a support relationship, but no. edit: And hamsters can crawl along the undersides of mesh aquarium tops. I've witnessed it myself. They are acrobatic motherfuckers, do not underestimate them, I suggest putting something fairly hefty(1-2 pounds) on the hamster cage's top to weigh it down and prevent escapes. I had one pile all the carefresh into one corner until he could just stand up and pop the top off, then escaped, fell 6 feet to the hardwood floor, crawled along into the storage room, and I only found him because his butt-tufts made a little clean line on the dusty storage room floor. When I found him, he was in the middle of chewing on a mouse's skull, presumably one that had died years prior when we had a mouse problem(125 y/o house, stone foundation, real hard to keep the mice out). But still, 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 02:22
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Rodents bite. Provided they aren't living in squalor and haven't been hanging out with wild squirrels and bats, you ought to be fine.
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Dec 20, 2012 02:15
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I think it's foolish and risking both their lives by putting them in the same cage to live together again after they already had previous altercations. They will get along exactly until the point that they don't, and one day you'll check on them and find half a hamster and another, much fatter hamster. Certain hamster types are extremely solitary animals and tend to fight to the death on a whim when put together in a confined space as they can't just chase one out of their territory, they're constantly stuck in the same space nearby. Syrians do, and I bet Roborovskis do too. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jan 1, 2013 |
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Jan 1, 2013 17:09
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Yes. You will be responsible for the death of at least one of them if you continue putting them together. Please don't think you can fix them or they're some special case, and take the advice of this thread to never put them together again.
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Jan 1, 2013 19:01
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Yeah they tried that with me when I adopted a three-legged hamster I brilliantly named Tripod, as all three-legged animals are required to be, and I just said "look, I have five cages at home. You really think I need another one?" and took her home in a small animal cardboard box carrier. Man, she was a good one. She ran just as fast as any normal hamster on her wheel, even with a stump. She had a lot of problems, but she was a sweetheart. Fluffy Bunnies posted:It's an inaccurate position because every single petsmart and petco I've been in keeps their animals differently and some actually do keep them appropriately, even in regards to larger rodent species (and non-rodents like ferrets, fish, etc). Hell, even in town the different is absurd. One keeps their ball pythons in a tiny little 2x1 cube at 110 degrees, the other keeps theirs in something that works out to be a 15 gallon long with proper humidity and temperatures and doesn't overcrowd the cage. Literally, I can drive across town and at one store the guinea pigs are kept in a 10 gallon with like 8 pigs, and at another store they're in a nice front-enclosed area with a screen back with 3 pigs in a 4x3 (ish) area. Yeah, the Petsmart near me that opened up fairly recently has not only a huge adoption center with multi-leveled housing for cats and such with ramps and toys and beds, but also has decently large hamster aquariums that are clean, kept 1-2 of the same sex per cage, and have plenty of toys. The lizards and such seem to be kept in well-...moistened? aquariums as well. Meanwhile, the local place where I have bought hamsters before(and got the pregnant one I have now from because I had a voucher for a free hamster due to one I bought that simply dropped dead a week after I bought it, probably won't buy from them anymore if I can find anyone else who sells females) often keeps them in a standard-sized aquarium(what I keep my hamsters in) but instead of one in each, it's like 4-6 in each. Mice, maybe 12 or more. One had Degus in it, and there were 5 of them. Degus aren't small in rodent terms either, they're like half again to twice the size of gerbils, and I'm pretty sure they get to be rat-sized when full grown.
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Jan 2, 2013 06:16
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Get them some stuff to chew on, if you haven't. Might calm their biteyness.
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Jan 22, 2013 00:16
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Do not ever keep a grown wild animal as a pet. Especially vermin.
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Feb 2, 2013 08:42
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If you want to relocate it, it'll have to be a sizable distance from your house, I know squirrels can track their way back to a nest from 10+ miles, so probably that far if you want to release it. It's wintertime so it may simply starve or freeze to death with no stores built up for the winter, and releasing it close to a neighborhood or city area would be irresponsible, damaging to others, and also often comes with hefty($5000+ was what we heard for relocating squirrels in our area) fines if caught. If you know of any heavily forested areas 10+ miles from your place, you can release it there and it might give it a fighting chance. It's up to you, really. I very often kill them, and this is coming from someone who loves rodents. I used to like squirrels, too, but that was until we started having an infestation in our attic. I've killed nearly forty of the bastards, and they just keep finding/chewing new ways in. Can't poison'em because it'll kill my dogs if they get ahold of one of the bodies. If the mouse is clearly a young one, I'll usually release it somewhere, but full grown ones usually take a toilet trip assuming the trap somehow doesn't kill them. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Feb 2, 2013 |
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Feb 2, 2013 09:13
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