So They're Here

In a Crittertrail One cage with blue carefresh bedding. Two wee hamsters, Ratchet-poo and an unnamed creamy boy. They look like miniature full-grown hamsters now, and their awareness of their surroundings is making them in a bit of a skittish state. But they're sweet and cute and lovely, so there you go. Actually, I may just pester them currently, as they are awake and moving about. That's the update for now. Tata.

Welcome Ratchet-Poo, Bandit and Creamy!

So we went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth for so long, and finally, we got realistic with ourselves. I am keeping one, the sweetest boy is keeping the momma and one baby, and the prettiest girl is keeping one. At one point, we were each considering keeping two, but that's just silly. So now, here they are. Ratchet-poo is mine, and henceforth the subject of this blog.


Ratchet-Poo



Bandit



Creamy

hamster history

I got my first hamster when I was in grade one. Her name was Sarah, and she was pregnant. We didn't know that of course. She ate half her litter. Five survived and one was named E.T. after the movie. Yeah. He became the mascot of the third grade classroom at O'Kelly Public School.
My second hamster was Samantha. I got her when I was eleven. She escaped into the piano in the living room and we took the whole thing apart before we found her, somewhere between G and F#. Like many other female dwarf hamsters, she developed cysts on her hamster boobies. Very gross, but she was too cute for it to matter. She was my best friend for FOUR YEARS.
My third hamster, concurrently with Samantha, was Gabrielle, after Xena's hot sidekick. She was diabetic and pregnant. She died shortly after her litter was weaned. There were ten of them at the start, but three died. She was unmemorable because she was extremely unfriendly, but one of the babies, Jenny, was heartbreaking to give away.

My fourth hamster was Saffron. She got a sort of fake pregnancy, and died shortly thereafter of a horribly common hamster ailment, wet-tail, which is like diarrhea but way worse. I nursed her for weeks, until I saw she wasn't having fun anymore. The day I stopped nursing her was the night she died. I've never stopped wondering if she could've kept living. That's a lot of responsibility in eighth grade. While she was alive, she was a good friend. She'd sit in my hoodie pocket while I read for hours on end, never peeing, never getting squirmy.
While I had her, I had Paddington, a greyish teddy bear hamster we rescued from an unloving home. He was very very sweet, but his eyes kept sealing together. He escaped for three weeks once, and turned up FATTER than when he'd left. My brother's creamy teddy bear, Theodore, escaped around the same time, maybe hearing the food was good. But he came back sick from some poorly chosen ingestibles.

After Saffron, Aberforth. Aberforth was a very cool grey colour. He was always small, and when he was just a year old, his testicles got sucked back into his body because of a cancerous growth in his groin. Yeah. Poor bugger.

A year later, Sofi, another dwarf, also bought pregnant. I kept one of her twelve daughters, Magnoli, but she escaped once during a backyard play session and was never seen again. Sofi was the prettiest of hamsters, and like Samantha, developed cysts on her boobies. More experience and education meant that for two years, I drained these cysts with a syringe every month. Sadly, she died of wet-tail like Saffron.

I added it up, and I've had rodents for 3/5ths of my life. Hamsters make up eight years of that. I am not meant to exist without a small animal. It's just not meant to be.

Twelve days until Poo arrives!

a bevy of updates

so the wee baby family grew and grew until, one day, three of the babies had names.
one, a grey/black hamster with lighter eye patches, was named Bandit.
another, pinky-creamy like Tom, was named Creamy.
and a third, still mysterious and unchosen, had the name Poo, though no one yet knew it. least of all the wee baby.
there remain a brown coloured hamster with a white belly, and two indistinct creamy ones who haven't made themselves likeable by nature of their activity.
the brown hamster, bandit and creamy are all bombing around the cage, climbing things and experimenting, playing with each other, sniffing things and being fondled by the prettiest girl and her beautiful boy. they will all be friendly, for sure.
Poo must be the most active of hamsters. s/he need not be distinctive in any other way other than his/her level of activity. that is the gadfli's only requirement for hamster companionship. and a lack of incestual pregnancy would be good too, but this ain't no rando pet store, so we can rest assured at that.

an introduction

once upon a time, a very pretty girl got a very sweet hamster from a pet store for her very beautiful son. the beautiful son was playing a lot of Tom and Jerry on the ps2, hence, the very sweet hamster was named Tom. it didn't take long for the realization of Tom's apparent lack of testicles and apparent presence of nipples to set in. after that, it took even less time to notice a suspicious bulge around her midsection.
on january 31st, a litter of five wee hamsters was born, naked and pink. they grew so very fast, and homes had to be found pronto. the pretty girl decided she would take one, and for a time, the gadfli thought she would two. but upon reading up on hamster care and caging, and realizing that there is apparently a very real difference between syrian and dwarf hamsters, the gadfli got realistic with herself and decided to take one wee baby. she decided that, no matter what, this baby hamster's name was to be Poo. simple names work best for animals, in her experience - they always live the longest and fullest lives, and nothing weird happens to them. so Poo it was.
Poo has yet to be chosen from the litter of five, but when he/she gets here, he/she's going to be the most over-documented hamster around. this is because the gadfli AND the prettiest girl are OBSESSED with blogging and with hamsters, so what better way than to waste your rec time by recording for posterity the intimate lives and details of small fluffy rodents via blog?

so there you have it. the birth of Poo and her/his adventures in the grand world. please enjoy.