Hamilton McFluffy is a 2 year old Satin Golden Banded Syrian hamster. We adopted him on Dec 25th 2010. He weighs about 177 grams. His original name was Hammy, but we felt that was too plain for such a dapper fellow.
Periwinkle is a Sapphire Winter White dwarf hamster. She was born on December 23rd 2010, and we adopted her on Feb 5th 2011. She weighs about 52 grams. She has been entered in SoCal hamster shows, placing 1st place in 'Best in Show' and 'Cutest'.
The two little roborovski superstars that started it all, Micro and Nano. They were adopted on April 19th 2009. They entered one show, placing 1st and 2nd in 'Best in Show' and 'Fastest Ball Race', and 2nd and 3rd in 'Most Unusual Markings'. Micro passed away on April 6th 2010, and Nano on Feb 15th 2011.
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I decided to weigh Sir Hamilton & Periwinkle tonight. It would help if I knew how much they were supposed to weigh. Hamilton weighs 169g or 5.96oz, and Periwinkle weighs 41g or 1.44oz. I also put a name tag on Hamilton's bin for decoration. I love the all the color :)
It's been one week since I lost Nano. I feel very down today. Not only that, but it's one week until my friend Kaylin's birthday. She passed away in 2008. Hopefully I'll be able to pull out of this funk soon. I don't like it at all.
Nothing interesting has been happening, but I feel bad for not updating. Still handling both Periwinkle and Hamilton every day. Periwinkle does not like to be disturbed when she's in her little bed that she made underneath her Critter Castle. She was squeaking up a storm the other day when we tried to get her. She was SCREAMING! Thankfully hamsters voices aren't that loud. I gave her a sunflower seed and she sat there squeaking at us while eating it. I couldn't help but laugh. The cute little bugger. Oh Periwinkle, you aren't as scary as you try to be!
On April 19th 2009, I purchased two little female roborovski hamsters named Nano & Micro. I had always wanted a hamster. Jim and I decided we wanted a pet, so I suggested robos. As soon as we went to see them at the store, we fell in love. Roborovskis are the smallest breed of hamster. They are about 2-3 inches long. Jim picked out Micro because she was the only one awake and running on her wheel like a little speed demon. I picked the tinest one in the cage and named her Nano.
Over the first three months, Their cage expanded rapidly. Despite their small size, robos require a lot of space to run around and play. Since Micro & Nano were our first little babies, we decided to spoil them. They truly lived in a hamsters paradise. Contrary to what most people think, They actually use every square inch of the cages. The set-up consisted of the following parts and accessories: CritterTrail one cage, CritterTrail outlook cage, CritterTrail discovery deluxe, CritterTrail x cage, CritterTrail school bus, habitrail ovo transport unit, 3 silent spinners, 1 CritterTrail treat dispensary, various little hideaways & tons of super pet tunnel tubes.
We were so excited to bring Micro & Nano home. I would spend lots of time just watching their cages and smiling at all the silly little things they would do. Like.. when we first got them the silent spinners, they would go into the wheels and run so fast. Due to the ball bearings that they would flip around the wheel & fly out. Don’t worry! It never seemed to phase them, as they always got right back on. Their favorite treat was sunflower seeds. They loved to take them from my hand, pouch them, and go stash them for later in their hideaways. I even joined the California Hamster Association and entered them in a hamster show! They won 1st & 2nd place for fastest in the ball for the dwarf class & 1st & 2nd place for roborovski dwarf breed female standards. They have their gold and silver medals hanging above their cages.
On the night of Monday April 5th 2010, Micro started showing signs of being ill. She wasn’t as active as she was in the morning, and I found her just sitting under her water bottle. She looked like she didn’t have much energy. I went to pick her up, and she didn’t try to run away at all like she usually did. I examined her all over, and all I noticed was a little mark by her lip. i thought she just had a booboo. I flipped her over onto her back, and that’s where I was absolutely shocked. I saw a tumor. It wasn’t that big, but it had to have popped up rather quickly because she was always showing me her belly. I put her back in her cage and kept checking on her.
On the morning of Tuesday April 6th 2010, she wasn’t doing much better. I woke up and checked on her and brought her out of her cage. The tumor was much larger than before. I called my boyfriend at work, and also the vet. I made an appointment for two hours later, the earliest I could. The vet examined her, and told me the news that I had been trying to deny to myself all day. She wasn’t doing well. She was dehydrated, and confirmed my suspicion on her illness. He told me she had 1-3 weeks left to live, & gave me some medicine for her lip. I went to the store and got her pedialyte & came home to rest with her. I held her and took some pictures with her for memories. i didn’t want to stress her out, so I put her back in her cage. About ten minutes later, I checked on her again.. and she had passed.
Though Jim and I were extremely heartbroken, Nano didn't seem to be bothered too much by her passing. She became really needy for awhile, though. She would do anything she could to get our attention, and beg for treats. We had to move in October 2010, so her cage had to be condensed down to just three CTs. It made her pretty mad, but she learned to live with it. She used every space that she could. She stayed active. She loved to run on her silent spinners, and took up chewing cardboard rolls.. but I think her favorite hobby was making her beds. She spent so much time perfecting them.
I was never able to tame Nano, but that didn't stop me from loving her with all of my heart, and then some. She would try to bite me anytime my hand was in the cage, even if it wasn't trying to touch her. She was a ninja. She loved sunflower seeds, the tiny sunflower seed looking seeds, and spinach. Apples made her extremely hyper.
I figured since I got them at the pet shop in April, that they were about 2 months or so. Nano lived to be about 2 years old. Nano was active all the way up until Feb. 14th 2011. Late that night I found her laying under her water bottle looking exhausted. I was sent into shock mode right away, as that was the same way I found Micro. It was 3:30am. I noticed blood where she had been laying, and after examining her, I came to the conclusion that she was constipated. At this point, she was still walking around her cage. She was drinking water. My boyfriend and I stayed up all night with her, doing everything we could. We gave her olive oil. She hated it. The only time in her life she did not try to bite me was because of the olive oil on my fingers.
As the sun started to rise, and after I felt like I couldn't cry anymore.. My boyfriend and I came to the conclusion that it was her time to go. We knew this was going to be our last day with her, so he stayed home from work and class to be with me and her. I know people are probably going to hate me for this, but I am not going to lie. We did not end up taking her to the vet. We did not want to stress her out even more by taking her out of her cage, making her sit in her critter keeper for awhile (she always hated when we transported her in that) and being handled by strange people. We made her as comfortable as possible.
My little trooper even went to her favorite spot when she knew it was time for her to go. She fought hard and strong until the very end. It was the saddest thing I ever saw, up there with the passing of Micro. My boyfriend and I cried so hard, even though we had been crying all night and day. Since we live in an apartment complex, we wanted to bury her somewhere more permanent that we could visit. We chose to bury her in my moms garden next to her sister, Micro. We drove about 2 hours to get there during the worst traffic time, but she was worth it.
Micro and Nano taught me so much about hamsters, and I am so lucky to have had them in my life. While my little babies are gone in the physical sense, they will forever live on in our hearts. I was lucky enough to record a lot of their life through pictures and video, and blogs online. I also have their medals and ribbons from the hamster show on my wall near the bed as a constant reminder of just how special they were. My moonchkin moonchkies. My moonpies. My Nano-butt. My Micro-kins. I will love you forever. Meet me at the Rainbow Gates.
Who would of figured that $15 could be so irreplaceable.
(more photos in the gallery, and videos on my youtube channel ~jaybeestarr)
Periwinkle is doing SOO good with our taming sessions. I bring her out every single day so she can interact with us. I don't know why it just dawned on me yesterday to rub her bedding on my hands for her scent. It works like a charm! She would come into my hand and start crawling up my arm. One time I even tried to put her back, and she didn't want to get out of my hands. Jim handled her, too. We let her walk around on our love-sac for a little bit. I think she had a good time. Her fur got a little greasy from our hands, but thats nothing a little sand can't fix. I can't believe just a week ago tomorrow morning, we were picking her up for adoption. She would squeak, and hide.. and now she's not nearly as skittish and she's very curious about the world around her. I've noticed that she's starting to look less like a baby, too. My little girl is growing up!
I could tell already this morning that today was going to be a good day because Nano was up and being active. She was being super spastic. Perhaps she noticed I took her yellow TV away from her Discovery Deluxe, but she never used it anyway! I gave it to Peri, but replaced that spot in Nano's cage with the little Super Pet bed. Ever since Saturday, she's been spending most of her time sleeping under her Critter Castle (I really want one of these for Peri!). I think she was mad that I made her be out of her cage so much this past weekend, and getting her nails clipped. Clipping them though seems to have helped her, because she ran for a very long time.
Speaking of running.. I finally saw little Miss Periwinkle running on her silent spinner! Jim thought he heard her the other night, but it could of been Nano. I saw her yesterday afternoon, though I don't have any photographic evidence. I hope she will use it more often. I said "Good Morning" to Peri today, and gave her a couple of random things from a seed mix, which she seems to love. When I open the little box on the top, she wants to walk right over the edge and explore. Every little bit of progress counts!
Isn't she just the cutest little hamster ever? She was taking seeds from my hand today. She loves sunflower seeds, but I'm not giving her many because I don't want her to become diabetic. She gets a TINY bit of seed mix (not even the size of your normal spoons you eat with) and mostly ProLab blocks. I opened the cage today and she was so eager to come out and say hi, I had to shoe her back in real quick before she escaped. I also tried giving her a sandbath, just to see what she would do with it. She didn't roll around in it, she just wanted to dig in it. She was making a mess, so I took it out and put her back in her cage. I saw her climbing up the sides of her cage today, all the way to the top! My little monkey! I can't wait until I can give her more space. I think she'd really enjoy having lots of room to dig underground tunnels.
Welcome to my own personal little corner on the web! I am thinking about purchasing the domain name, so be on the look out for that soon! The only natural first post is an introduction post, right? My name is Shelly. I'm 22 years old, and I live in Southern California. I live with my boyfriend; Jim, and our 3 hamsters, one of which we just got two days ago! We have been keeping hamsters for nearly two years, so by no means do I claim to be an expert. I had always wanted a dwarf hamster when I was younger, but my parents always said no. Like every other kid, I didn't understand why I couldn't have it. Looking back now, I am glad I was unable to buy a hamster at that time because I would of not been able to properly care for a furry friend the way that I would now.
I got my first hamsters on April 19th 2009. My boyfriend and I had recently moved into an apartment and had wanted a pet. Our room mates already had a cat, so we had to think of something that would be fine just living in our small room. I looked into dwarf hamsters, and the minute we laid eyes on the Roborovskiis, we fell in love! We purchased two little girls. Jim, picked out Micro because she was running on her wheel, and I picked out Nano; the smallest of the group. Our first set-up for them consisted of the Crittertrail X-Treme, the Crittertrail Mini and the little yellow bus, though it soon to become a massive set-up! A Crittertrail Outlook, a Crittertrail One, a Crittertrail Discovery Deluxe, a Crittertrail X-Treme, a blue transport Habitrail Ovo, the little yellow bus and lots of tubes quickly became their paradise. It took about two hours to clean with two people. Micro passed on April 6th 2010 of a mammary tumor that seemed to grow nearly overnight. We took her to the vet, but there was nothing they could do. She died later that day. Micro Moonchkie is one of the main reasons I wanted to create this blog. Nano is still doing great. She is nearly two years old. She is showing signs of aging, such as hair loss and thinning, but she's still rather active throughout her cage.
We adopted our second hamster from Jim's mother and sister during our Christmas 2010 vacation at their house. He is a long haired satin golden banded Syrian hamster. They originally purchased him during Summer of 2009, so he is about a year and a half old. They named him Hammy, but I felt that was far too plain for such a great hamster, thus Sir Hamilton McFluffy of the Syrian Longhairs was born. He loves his new found "freedom", upgrading from two Crittertrail cages into a nice big cage with a senior sized Wodent Wheel. McFluffy is quite the contrast from Nano. I am able to pick him up and play with him, and I don't have to worry about him running away in a split second. He makes me very happy.
Periwinkle, a Sapphire Winter White, came into our lives rather suddenly. On Feb. 4th 2011, a friend of mine sent me an email asking if I would like to adopt her. Her birthdate is December 23rd 2010. She was picked on by her colony and had to be separated from the group. She was quite fearful, but just needed time to trust. How could I say no? I picked her up the next day. She is about six weeks old. I was quite apprehensive about getting a new hamster that is afraid of me since Nano always bites me, but I've already seen so much improvement with Periwinkle. She used to squeak and hide every time she saw you paying attention to her, but here we are, just a few days later and she doesn't mind people watching her. She doesn't squeak as much. We are working on socializing with her every day. I have high hopes for her. She currently lives in a Crittertrail cage, but I am looking to upgrade her to a bin when she's a bit older.
Sorry for such a long post, but I seem to have gotten everything covered. I upload videos of my hamsters all the time, so if you would like to check out more, please visit my Youtube Channel for many more videos of my furry friends.
