Animal Lovers Web Blog

Wow, what a day we’ve just  had! My daughter and I went to the Bradford Small Animal show in Harrogate in the  UK today. It is an annual event where they competetively show rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and some other animals. We had never been to a small animal show before so we didn’t know quite what to expect, but we really enjoyed the day and we had an absolute ball.

It was held in two massive halls where around 3000 small animals, mostly rabbits but with a fair number of guinea pigs and much fewer hamsters were on display. We were free to walk around and view all of the animals and  we could also get up close and handle the animals, when they were on the judging tables. The animals owners and the judges were extremely approachable and willing to chat and give information regarding the animals, which made for a real friendly and informative atmosphere and they were also happy for people to take picture of their animals.

As well as the show animals themselves there were a number of trade exhibitons with animal feedstuffs, housing and various other animal related bits and  pieces. Around the perimeter of the halls there were also stalls manned by various animal breed clubs and societies, where the club members were happy to discuss their particular breeds of interest. There was even a television celebrity vet, Matt Brash from ITV Yorkshire’s Zoo Vet At Large who was also very approachable and happy to chat with the attendees including ourselves and my daughter even had her picture taken with him, and, of course, we had to buy his book, which he duly signed!

Although rabbits outnumbered all of the other animals by some margin and there was a fantastic array of beautiful rabbit breeds of all sizes shapes and colours, I particularly enjoyed the guinea pigs. I saw for the first time a number of guinea pig breeds that were new to me, including my personal favourite the Lilac Fox. This was a stunningly coloured smooth coated guinea pig with lighter eye circles and a very light coloured belly. I spoke in some detail with the breeder and look forward to hearing more about this breed from him and quite possibly acquiring one or two to add to our current pair of guinea pigs.

The only dissapointment for us was how few hamsters there were on show and nearly all of the Syrians were just curled up in a ball in their cages trying to get some sleep. Maybe what the Syrian hamsters need is a nocturnal small animal show to really shine! There were quite a few dwarf hamstes and a few long haired Syrians, which were nice as we hadn’t seen to many of them in the flesh before. Anyway it certainly made a great day out and we have already pencilled in it in the diary for next year and plan to find a few more similar small animals shows to attend in the spring and summer.

John 

Animal Lovers Web.com

After our bad experience at trying keeping male rabbits together, it should not really have come as a surprise to find out that our boy baby dwarf hamsters were no longer the best of friends.

At six weeks old, we had finally mastered  sexing dwarf hamsters and all of our baby hamsters had been accurately identified as boy or girl hamsters and separated into two cages.  Out of an initial litter of seven, we found that the boys outnumbered the girls by five to two, but as we expected a couple of the males to be going to a new home shortly, we left them to enjoy each others company for a little while longer.

It became apparent that all was not well over the weekend as increasingly worrying screeches and squeals emanated from the boys cage.  We weren’t sure whether it was initially just over boisterous play (ever the optimist!) but closer observation lead us to single out a rogue hammy who seemed to get his kicks out of terrorising the other boys.  Clearly he preferred his own company and, once presented with a new bin cage of his own, peace was restored to the boys quarters again.

Our confidence that the boy dwarf hamster’s new-found harmony would last through the New Year was unfortunately short lived.  An ear-piercing squeal this evening sent us rushing to find one of the boys blood-soaked with bites to his nose, several puncture wounds on his back and other wounds to his feet and abdomen.  He was a very sorry and ragged mess.  We quickly assembled an old cage and, following some TLC, left him alone to rest and hopefully recover from his ordeal.

We’re not sure if he was the result of an ambush by the other 3 dwarf hamsters,  they all looked remarkably unscathed and the hamster which was attacked had been a late addition to the boys cage due to difficulty sexing him accurately.  We just need to hope that the remaining males continue to get along or we’ll be over-run with cages, never mind hamsters! 

Our dwarf baby hamsters are now three weeks old and we were getting to the stage of needing to think about sexing the hamsters and separating them with their respective parent. Unfortunately, Sunny (dad) has hastened up the whole process by having a sudden personality swap! His nomination for father of the year has been removed after his repeated attempts to attack the babies and scare them half witless. Although no babies appeared to be physically harmed, he made his feelings towards them known with lunging, high pitched squeals and threatening behaviour.

This posed a real problem for us as we had planned to put the male babies in with him but realised that this was now probably an unwise option. Fortunately, we have had some really great advice from some dwarf hamster experts on our new hamster discussion forum . We realised that we had no option but to separate Sunny from the baby hamsters, both male and femal, as the risk that he would have seriously harmed or killed them by the morning would have been too great.

Laura and Diane hastily reassembled an old cage and sadly removed Sunny from the family home. It was with a really heavy heart, as he had been such a supportive and helpful dad up until this point. We didn’t know how he would react to being taken from his partner Elly and all the babies - we were soon to find out!

Sunny became quite frantic once on his own, desperately scratching the sides of his cage and trying to climb out, it was terrible to see him in such distress. We decided that this was too cruel and made a short term decision to reunite him with Elly, but to leave the hamster pups together on their own. Our friends on the forum assured us that, although the babies were still suckling from Elly at times, they would be able to look after themselves. We had certainly seen them using the water bottles and taking solid food, so we felt assured that they would be OK.

Well, Sunny and Elly are back together - Sunny is so delighted and has unfortunately been displaying his great affection as only male hamsters know how. Let’s hope we don’t hear the patter of more tiny paws too soon! Elly is still a young hamster and we don’t really want her to be breeding, but it’s a bit of a problem as they get so distressed when apart. It was suggested to us that we could maybe separate them with a wire partition so that at least they could see and smell each other. We’ll need to think carefully about what’s best for them both.

As for our hamster babies - talk about when the cat’s away! They have had a ball without mum and dad around and have really amused us. Check out the video and you’ll probably agree that they don’t seem to be missing the old folks too much at all!

Diane
www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

Now at around two week old our hamster babies are finally losing their inhibitions and are out and about quite frequently and are incredibly cute. Once you’ve seen newborn lambs and chicks you think you have seen the cutest things that the animal world has to offer, then it surprises you again with a baby animal at least equally cute.

Hamster babies are tiny and they seem to have a head that is disproportionately large for their bodies, which just adds to their cuteness. When we first started to handle them they would just sit there, frozen to the spot. Now though, they are having a sniff around and even having a little nibble at our fingers.

We have two lovely fawn coloured baby hamsters and three that have exactly the same markings as their mother, which is darker brown with a blackish dorsal stripe. We did count at least eight to begin with but some do seem to have disappeared, without a trace. Unfortunately, one of the babies seems to have a problem with its eye, which doesn’t seem to be opening properly. We are going to ask for some advice regarding this from a hamster expert on our hamster discussion forum. We are still hoping that it is not too late and that the eye may be ok. You can just see this briefly on the videos below.

We are now thinking about having a go at sexing the  hamsters soon as we will need to separate them at about 3 weeks. We are also dreading separating the parents, as they do make a lovely and very considerate couple. From observing the daddy hamster over the last two weeks I think many human dads could learn a thing or two about how to be a good partner and father!

John

www.AnimalLoversWeb.com

We continue to be very impressed with our young Dwarf russian hamsters and their parenting skills. We haven’t captured much footage of the baby hamsters yet, largely as a result of the very protective behaviour of the parents. We did  have a laugh though at the behaviour of the mother hamster recently when we tried to get a look in the nest.

The video below shows the hamster frantically digging in the bedding materials, trying to cover the entrance to the nest, then as if that wasn’t enough, she comes further out to get more material. Almost covering herself in the process.

The baby hamsters did spill out to the area just in front of the nest box last night, but typically, when trying to film animals, as soon as you get the camera…it’s all over. The mother hamster had dragged them right back in, and guess what? Correct, buried them in more bedding materials.

John

www.AnimalLoversWeb.com