Tina Winterlik: A Hamster Intervention!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A Hamster Intervention!!

Blog post by Tina Winterlik © 2011

http://tinawinterlik.blogspot.com

So my little girl would love a dog or a cat or even a bird, but right now we have a hamster.

This is our 4th hamster. The first one was having seizures and passed away on Mother's day. ;(
We went back and got a new one, as we had just bought it.

The second one, escaped, we had had troubles with mice in the building that year and we are pretty sure that some little girl mouse came and helped Mr. Kibbles escape to greener pastures.

Mr.Kibbles

Miss Lily, was our third hamster. Unfortunately when we went to Mexico for the winter we had to give Miss Lily away. That made Angel really sad. She was a very nice hamster and so was Mr. Kibbles.

So this summer we got a new hamster. But I admit I made some big mistakes. We never handled the hamster, first, like we did with the others. Forte our little hamster is a dwarf hamster and he was so cute and in such a little a cage ...my thoughts were, "Oh he's so adorable and he'll be easy to care for." The others had this very elaborate cage that was a b_tch to clean. Excuse my language.

I never saw how fast he moved until we were at the counter and they were putting him in the box. The pet store owner was giving us a deal for the hamster and cage and I had already said "Yes" to my little girl so there was no going back. The other thing I learned was that he was already 4 months old. Egad...they only live til 2. Had he been all alone in that cage for 4 months.

Well we had problems right from the start. He was impossible to pick up. He would bite. We had a ball for him to run in, and had to put the ball in the cage and let him jump in and then put the lid on and let him out to roll around. It was crazy. How was I supposed to take care of this grumpy hamster.

He ran all night - he did this crazy monkey bar thing, that at first we thought it was funny, then realized that was probably his only way to keep from going crazy in that little cage. He made a lot of noise and we were living in very cramped conditions and his cage was close to our bed so he kept me up all night.

Angel wasn't that interested in him as he bit both of us a few times, I was tired of him keeping me up all night and his cage was a hassle to clean, even if it was small, it was smelly and well we were discouraged.

Things all perked up when we moved. My friend gave us a glass tank and then gave us some wood and things. Forte loved it!

It stays really clean too! I only have to clean it like 1x a month.

Now I've been putting moss in there and pine branches, sticks and Forte just loves it. On rainy days we tease and say "It's Raining" and we mist his moss to keep it moist, and he likes it. We keep his cage near a heater so it dries out pretty fast and he stays warm.

He still won't let us pick him us, but he's sniffing and not biting anymore. At least he's living as natural a life as possible.

When were all so miserable before the move, I contemplated setting him free, so he could have "some kind of life!" but my friend said "no way, he'll get eaten right away" that's why she brought us the tank...she was doing a hamster intervention...and I'm glad she did.

So if you happen to have a miserable little hamster consider "A Hamster Intervention ;)"

After this we are done with hamsters, I hope to move onto a bird. And we will be sure it's young and friendly first before to commit to it.