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Rodents can go downhill real fast, unfortunately. If he starts having any signs of sickness or starts getting dirtier, ask around. And guinea pigs do indeed bite, and hard. I have two scars on my thumb from when my first guinea pig nearly bit clean through it because I had some food on it. Good lord, I haven't thought of him in ages. He lived to be 9 years old, was 13 inches long and weighed nearly 6 pounds. He dwarfed every single other pig we ever owned by half again as much, and was jet black. He was a real monster sometimes, and I was horribly allergic(discovered that fact after we got him), but I still loved'im so. 
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Feb 2, 2013 14:35
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 22:52 |
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Hamsters will make as much noise as they possibly can with anything they are able. It's just what they do. I had to jury-rig a setup to hang the water bottles from the center of the cage top so that they couldn't just bang them against the glass for literally hours on end in the middle of the night.
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Feb 19, 2013 19:25
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Saint Darwin posted:My guinea pigs do the same thing, when they drink its rattlerattlerattle on the side of the cage, which is annoying in of itself, but sometimes they'll grab the nozzle in their mouths and pull back and forth like they're trying to rip it off the side. No I mean my hamsters, all of them, will take the bottle in both paws, stand up, and just bang it against the glass for hours on end, even if there's something else for them to do. Basically, what I'm saying is they're the equivalent of a prisoner raking his metal mug against the bars.
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Feb 20, 2013 01:37
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It's a Lavos Spawn.
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Feb 28, 2013 01:47
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On the other hand, Chip, one of the black hamster babies from the litter, has learned how to climb his water bottle. He'll scale it and hang on top of it, chewing the paper clip that attaches it to the roof of the cage, and sometimes can stay on it for upwards of 2-3 minutes before falling spectacularly to the floor again.
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Mar 17, 2013 09:08
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thexerox123 posted:But... that's not a guinea pig? I don't think anybody is doubting the fact that hamsters can climb. That's what I was saying, though I may have worded it a bit improperly.
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Mar 17, 2013 18:52
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Those little floaty things are bacteria magnets though.
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Mar 18, 2013 00:02
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Honeydew, the momma hamster of the four babies I have, died yesterday. Don't know why. She was always slightly colder, slightly more hunched, and wayyyy more skittish than the rest of them though. I have a feeling she wasn't that young when she got pregnant, I don't know how old she was when I got her, but she was definitely physically affected by the pregnancy and rearing the babies. After I took them away, she lost a lot of weight and became more aggressive and bitey. Real sad. Her teeth were fine, she was eating and drinking normally, but she almost seemed like she couldn't keep her body heat in.
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Mar 18, 2013 15:50
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Hamsters sleep where they want to sleep. If they want to sleep in their own detritus, they will. If they want to sleep under their water bottle and constantly be woken up by the ever-so-slow dripping, they will. Hamsters are not very bright.
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Mar 29, 2013 23:51
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I'm sorry to say this, but it's probably best if you had the vet put him down if it's a cancerous tumor(which it probably is if it's growing that rapidly). Cancerous tumors grow extremely fast in rodents, I had a chinese dwarf that had a tumor grow to the size of her head in a few weeks. The vet took a sample and put it under a microscope and said they could see the cancer growing on the slide. We decided to put her down right there to end her suffering, I was holding her as they injected her and she weakly bit my thumb and held on as she fell asleep for the last time. 
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Apr 22, 2013 05:57
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It's going to grow huge and seriously impede his movement and quality of life, and must hurt like hell. It's probably best not to string it out.
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Apr 22, 2013 07:02
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I take it Degu teeth are different from other rodent teeth and can't just be clipped back down? On the rare occasion when one of my hamster's teeth have overgrown, I'll just clip them with a pair of model clippers down to an appropriate length. It's a hassle getting it in their mouths because they clearly don't like it, but better than slowly starving to death because they can't even open their mouths.
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Apr 29, 2013 23:24
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HappyKitty posted:The front teeth can be clipped, if you're careful (and your degu will let you); it's the molars that are troublesome, and require veterinary attention. Ohhhh, that's the part I missed. Gotcha. So it's kinda like Wisdom Teeth but lethal?
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Apr 30, 2013 00:35
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Yeah, rodents can go a helluva distance if they escape. I think I mentioned this story before, but an old Syrian hamster I had, while I was at work one night, escaped. He piled his shavings under his wheel until it jammed, climbed on top of it, then lifted the top off until he could climb out. He fell about five feet to the floor without a scratch, then scurried off out of my room, down the hallway to the other side of the house into the storage room, and made his way into the closet there. I only found him because, being a male, he had massive butt-tufts to keep his balls warm, and this left a sparkling clean line in the dust on the storage room floor that led straight to him. The storage room hasn't been used much in a while. When I found him, he was happily holding and chewing on the skeleton of a mouse that had died in there at some point. I pointed the flashlight at him and he stood up, mouse skeleton held firmly in his front paws. 
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May 15, 2013 09:26
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Rule number one of small rodents: if they can fit their head in something, they can fit the rest of their body into it too. Collapsible ribcage or something, right?
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May 15, 2013 13:59
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Runt, the smallest of my hamsters, was fine this morning, and now he's cold and has congestion. I can hear him breathe since it sounds like he's got snot bubbles or something in his nose. Is there anything I can do to help him? Keep him warm, maybe?
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Jun 12, 2013 02:04
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No, in reality gerbils died out millions of years ago due to starvation from burying their food and forgetting where it was, and you don't actually own any, you're just having a psychotic episode. Also I left my space heater on medium-high after putting Runt's cage a foot away from it on the floor, and now he is breathing fine, moving around his cage and digging for food, and is warmer than he was before. Hopefully he continues to improve!
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Jun 12, 2013 09:37
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I've got four Syrian hamsters and my room is the hottest room in the house, so I just leave the air conditioner on low pretty much all the time for them(and me). It only costs like a hundred bucks tops for the whole summer to run the AC nonstop, so I figure it's worth it to not have cooked hamsters. Is that not an option on your end? Also, looking up Syrian Hamsters on Wikipedia has just taught me that the Arabic name for the Golden Hamster translates to "Mister Saddlebags" due to their huge cheek pouches. 
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Jul 1, 2013 01:53
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Rodents sleep in burrows underground to escape the heat as well as predators, I'm guessing. Also I think gerbils and hamsters such as Syrians are desert creatures, and so when you put them into a hot AND humid environment, they get hosed. I came home one night when it got much hotter than I had anticipated while I was out and my hamsters were all laying out flat as much as possible to disperse the heat, that's when I chose the air conditioner route. Humidity does not do a hamster good, and I'm guessing it's a similar issue for gerbils.
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Jul 1, 2013 03:37
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My hamster regularly sleep with their heads jammed into the corners of their aquariums at 90 degree angles pointing up. It looks like the most uncomfortable sleeping position in the world, but they don't seem to mind.
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Jul 2, 2013 10:29
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Maybe angle the wheel slightly so that the pee and such automatically drains out when he goes in it?
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Jul 8, 2013 00:11
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Budget Bears posted:Whoa, thanks for the wire wheel info! I actually asked the lady at Petco if it was safe to have a wheel with so many little holes and nooks and she was pretty dismissive about it.
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Jul 30, 2013 20:31
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They're probably pissed about it for about three seconds before forgetting and resuming on their way.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:59
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This is the thread for pet rodents, not eliminating problem rats, I think.
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Sep 4, 2013 03:52
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Yeah, when holding my hamsters, I'll make a little "cave" out of my hand for them to crawl into, and they'll always try and squeeze between my thumb and forefinger, but I won't let them, instead letting them push my hand around by the thumb. It's adorable, but sometimes they'll grab my thumb with their teeth and try and lift my entire hand by the thumb, or shove the thumb out of the way, those are "nips". The girl will always do this twice, and the third time will be a definite bite because she gets fed up easily. 
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Sep 9, 2013 01:03
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The hamster I handle the most will sometimes fall asleep in my hand, while the rest will constantly crawl everywhere until they exhaust themselves. It might just be you need to handle it more, though I don't know if it's a similar situation with gerbils.
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Sep 9, 2013 07:02
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My first guinea pig, Pepper, was the biggest guinea pig I've ever seen. He was over a foot long and weighed six pounds but was definitely in shape as he could run ridiculously fast for his size, and would hump the daylights out of anything. When he peed, it would leave a spot the size of a paper plate, and his poops were an inch long. He lived to be eight and a half years old before finally doing the "lose 2/3 of my body weight in a few days and die" thing, and went totally peacefully unlike basically any other pig I've had. I loved that little rear end in a top hat, him and Junior, my 7 year old chinese dwarf hamster were bros. Junior would ride around on his back and Pepper was cool with it, though occasionally he'd try to hump Junior, so I'd need to keep an eye on them.
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Dec 6, 2013 10:36
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You could try putting Mothra in an aquarium instead of a cage.
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Dec 14, 2013 14:33
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bettsta posted:Falafel is on the left, Nanuk on the right. Managed to catch a rare moment between "yayyy, let's run around in circles really fast!" and "yayyy, let's poop everywhere!"
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 10:25
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Dawww, that dorfie. I miss my dwarf hamsters. I'm probably going to get a Chinese Dwarf or two once the four Syrians I raised pass away, as sad as it'll be to see them go. They all developed individual personalities and quirks, so I'm gonna miss the hell out of them when they're gone.
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Jan 17, 2014 10:56
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I feel terrible, I was holding Jumbo, one of the litter I raised, and when I was done I accidentally put him into Runt's cage because I was distracted talking to my roommate and I had both their cage tops open to feed them, and didn't notice until some of the worst noises I've heard started coming from Runt's cage because Jumbo had ambushed Runt while he was sleeping and they got into a furball. I know you're not supposed to intervene in a furball, but I had to because Jumbo was going to kill Runt, and he got me real good on the thumb and I was bleeding quite a lot and soaked half a paper towel in blood, I put some antibiotics on it then double-bandaged it, that should be good, right? I'm not sure what infections could be gotten from a deep hamster bite(it probably came close to hitting the bone, it's pretty deep). I'm holding Runt right now to check him out and he seems fine, he's not limping or anything but he's got a few bloody bite marks on his underside, though it doesn't seem to be anything major. Jumbo seems to have avoided injury which isn't surprising since he was the ambusher and twice Runt's size. I did learn something though, apparently male hamsters can retract their gigantic gonads into their body as a protective measure since both of them suddenly didn't have these massive things hanging under them anymore, they had pulled them in for safety. Man I feel horrible, this is the first time this has happened in almost 20 years of owning hamsters. On a lighter note, a friend of a friend's kids moved back to brazil with their father, and they left their hamster behind. Their mother said if she can't find an owner for it she's going to feed it to her snake, so I'm going to take it since I've got a spare cage. His name is Max Maxington, named by the kids, of course. My room is turning into a hamster menagerie.
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Feb 25, 2014 04:37
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Yeah, it isn't swelling up significantly or oozing pus so after another day or so I'll probably just superglue it shut. Also got Max today, he is super chill and amazingly cute. Even came with a free(somewhat busted up) cage, to boot! I'll take some pictures later, he's awesome. Not really surprising that the mother was going to feed her son's hamster to a snake because she didn't want to take care of it, she's not really shown herself to be a particularly sensitive person. When I got him he didn't even have any food or water in his cage and immediately start chowing down on the jumbo pellets I gave him. What a callous shithead she is.
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Feb 26, 2014 09:12
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That's adorable. So long as they weren't trying to bite your face, I'd say they're cool with you.
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Mar 8, 2014 18:44
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You could also use those padded sheets that are for kids who wet the bed to hold them with, that's what we used to use for our pigs, when my mom ran a daycare we had a surplus of them so it worked out well.
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Apr 28, 2014 23:14
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SweetPotato posted:And maybe even feeding her tiny burrito's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOCtdw9FG-s and pizza's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNf-IGmxElI - it seems to be all the rage these days.
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May 10, 2014 01:13
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Rodents do weird things with water bottles. My current batch of hamsters will knead the nozzle as if it's a teat.
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May 19, 2014 19:10
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Cleaned the hamster cages last night, woke up this morning to find Bitey, the sole girl of the babies my old hamster gave birth to, dead on top of her bedding. It looked like she was walking along and dropped dead, maybe from an aneurysm. She was clean and chubby, healthy, and this suddenly happens. Man, what a bummer. I know they don't live long, but I don't like it when they just up and die without warning, makes me feel like I did something wrong. Also hurts a lot because I watched them grow from newborn babies. The rest of them are active and happy as usual, I held them all and they all slept in my shirt. My girlfriend wants them to sleep in her shirt but for whatever reason, maybe her scent or something, as soon as they get in her shirt they just get completely wired and crawl all over the place in there, while when they go in my shirt, they'll curl up around my neck or on my shoulder or stomach and go to sleep really fast. Weird, maybe they're just used to my scent and feel comfortable sleeping on me, but haven't gotten used to her yet.
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May 27, 2014 11:43
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I managed to get a picture of Chip sleeping inside my shirt before he woke up. 
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Jun 7, 2014 14:59
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the way I wake up my hamsters without getting bit is by placing my palm flat down on top of them. They jerk up and go into a defensive stance like usual, but they don't have any surface they can latch onto with their bitey little nippers. After the intial jolt awake, they're usually pretty docile and can be picked up. She will need to learn that while holding them is fine, she cannot take her eyes off of them for a moment, as they can run VERY fast when they want to and can fit into extremely small spaces to escape. Having a ball to put them in, making sure it's of a suitable size for them(too small and it can hurt their back, same goes for wheels) is a good idea for when she wants to have them out but not hold them, just make sure there's something blocking any staircases and such so it doesn't get injured rolling down them. Don't buy wire-frame wheels. They can cripple or gravely injure hamsters if they're unlucky and get a toe caught or something. I had a three-legged hamster who managed to snag their anus on part of the mesh and ripped part of their intestines out their anus. It was horrifying. I immediately recycled all of the wire wheels I had. Get an enclosed plastic one that has no gaps that fingers/paws can get stuck in. I've owned nearly two dozen hamsters over the years, and my advice for picking one out, as weird/painful as it may be, is to stick your hand in the cage and see how the store ones react. There will always be bitey ones who will walk right up and chomp down, but there's usually a docile one that will curiously climb onto your hand, and that's the one I always pick. It's served me very well over the years, most of my hamsters have been absolutely awesome. Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 21:44
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 22:52 |
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It can be hard, true, but after a while you just come to accept that they intrinsically don't live very long and so treasure the time you do have with each.
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Jun 11, 2014 23:09
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