The Home of Hamster Fans! My Pet Hamsters

These two hamster brothers have been with us for some time now, but we haven’t really found the right names for them till now. Since they strongly reminded us of our two “brother dogs,” Harry and Choknat, we named these two after their doggy counterparts!

Like the two dogs, these “hamster brothers” are pretty close, in a hamster sense at least. We see them cuddling up together while sleeping and play as if they’re dogs And yep, we’re sure they’re brothers. They were beloved Wendy’s sons.

Our female pet hamster, code named Abester, has just recently produced 3 healthy litters. Initially, it was four but one got eaten by Mommy herself. Hamsters have cannibalistic nature and they usually eat their own babies when threatened. Breeding hamsters seem to be a lot complicated than I thought it would be.

There was no warning or indication. No swelling tummy or unusual odor. We knew she was pregnant but we did not know when she would give birth. Our female hamster was in a small clear plastic housing together with 3 other male companions. I was watching National Geographic. Then I heard some commotion. To my surprise, Abester has produced 4 tiny miniature hamsters scattered all over the cage. She obviously felt threatened so she was already starting to munch on one of the litters. I quickly got all the other male hamsters out of the cage.

We had to use old newspaper to cover the whole cage. We also had to refrain from cleaning the cage to avoid triggering the hamster’s cannibalistic behavior. This gave the female hamster security for her and the babies. After a few days, the remaining 3 litters have survived. They all look like just their Mommy.

We miss Wendy…

She’s the friendliest of our hamsters, making sure that she’d say hello every time we’re near her cage. She and Peter are my favorites, and they’re two of the three hamsters we’ve named—the third one was Abe-ster. The other three of our hamsters remain nameless.

I don’t know… But for me, we don’t name pets we don’t intend to keep. Leaving them unnamed makes it easier to part with them—there isn’t any emotional attachment. Well, we definitely had some emotional attachment to Wendy. It’s really sad that she’d be the first to go

Goodbye, dear Wendy. We’ll miss you

My hamster-expert uncle told me that hamsters have fast metabolism—they’re very active creatures. It’s either my sister’s hamsters just have a problem, or they’re just freaks of nature. I prefer to attribute it to the latter, for the simple reason that it’s really hard to find the underlying cause. I’m a bit new to hamster care, so I really wouldn’t know as much as I would about dogs.

The underlying cause is probably just weirdness.

And here’s Wendy posing for the camera.

Well, at least Wendy’s trying to make an effort to exercise. Peter is so lazy that he doesn’t even bother—the exercise wheel is just a makeshift hammock for him.

I thought I’ve seen it all with Dogster and Catster. I was very amused to find that my dogs can have their own “online circle of friends,” and now, I’m even more amused to find that there exists a similar networking site for pet hamsters and gerbils: hamsterster.com.

And to think I was skeptical for putting a blog for my hamsters. The creator of this site takes the cake, though it says on the About page that he doesn’t own a hamster. Ah well. Regardless of which, hamster owners have him to thank for giving them a venue to show of their little friends. Thanks, David!
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A few days ago, an uncle of mine came over for some design work. Before he got into dog breeding, he used to care for a bunch of hamsters. I think he got into hamster breeding a bit, until my great-aunt (his mom) decided that they needed to get a dog. But before the hamsters went away, he pretty much had a thorough understanding of their behavior.

My uncle said that female hamsters are the trouble-makers in the breed. They’re more aggressive than the males. He’s right, actually. I noticed the same in our hamsters. Ever since we started caring for Wendy’s babies, we were able to somehow get an idea of how hamsters interact in a group.

The female ones are indeed very aggressive. The females that we have are the ones who usually fight over toys, food, and territory. My uncle said it’s a good thing that these females grew up together, else, they’ll probably end up killing each other. It’s ok to have two males and a female, but never two females and a male.

Heh. Funny how this behavior is similar to humans huh? Women are usually more jealous than men
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Meet Peter and Wendy’s kid. There are actually four of them, and are quite grown up now. Since my husband and I probably won’t keep them all, we’re not naming them (did you know? Emotional attachment to pets actually lessens when you haven’t named it yet). This nameless little guy actually enjoys playing with their water bottle—it’s only one of the rare instances he’s actually drinking. He’s usually just playing and pulling on the water bottle (and makes a hell of a noise!).

No, he isn’t! That’s Peter, my sister’s white, obese, and uberly lazy hamster. Peter is so lazy he puts Garfield the Cat to shame. The one with him is Wendy—and she’s a tad bit more active than her lazy partner.

I’m Gail, and I’d like to welcome you all to My Pet Hamsters, the home of hamster fans! My husband, Marc, might also join me here every now and then to talk about our little furry creatures at home.

Meet our hamster family:

This is just a teaser. You’ll be seeing more of them soon!