When I was around 13 year old or so, I just had to have a cute cuddly little hamster. Mom and Dad said okay and we visited the local pet store. I picked out my first hamster named Lisa and thought about how lonely she would be in the big cage with no friend. So, I found Mikey in the same store….I think you can guess where this is headed.
About a month or so later, I saw that Lisa had some movement under her. Aww, babies, how precious! The cubs grew quickly and less than a couple months later, there was a new batch of babies! I was so excited and started adding on rooms with the tubes leading to additional cages.
One day as my best friend and I were eating our popsicles in my room, I moved aside some saw dust to show her the cubs, making sure not to touch them. To our horror, Lisa ate her little cub! We were so disgusted. From then on, she never kept one of her cubs alive.
Because hamsters are nocturnal, the little critters would keep me up all night chewing around the tubes of their cage or running on their wheels. We had can openers and closed scissors taped across parts of the openings so they couldn’t chew their way out. I would joke that the hamsters huddled around plotting their escape. Almost every night I heard my mom wake me around 2 a.m., “Melissa, the hamsters are out again.” And our then poodle would be on the hunt to find them for me to put back in the cages.
I was a crazy girl and later went out to buy 4 more hamsters. These hamsters all mated. I once had 40 hamsters at one time in my bedroom. I know what you must be thinking! My parents had to have been nuts to let me have all these critters. I did take care of them myself and changed their cages, food and water frequently, but yes, my room stunk!
Sometimes cubs escaped and fell behind my dresser. I had to check behind there often and found them sometimes dead. There are stories that I could tell you about what my hamsters did that would make you sick—but I will spare you the gory details! To be honest, one story horrifies me to this day.
Surprisingly I did catch most of my hamsters after their escape. One warm summer night, I was on the back deck talking to a friend when all of the sudden, scurrying past me was Pumpkin Pie! She had been missing over a month and looked as healthy as ever! I grabbed her and tamed her again. In case you’re wondering, all my adult hamsters had names.
Over the 3 or 4 years I kept hamsters, I figure I had about 400 total. Most of these were cubs and were eaten by other hamsters, probably as a means of birth control. The time I had 40 at once was a result of 4 of my mother hamsters having cubs at the same time.
Needless to say, I’m not eager for my kids to ask for a hamster. If I cave in one day, it will be one hamster only! I still have bad dreams about cleaning cages and multiplying hamsters.
Please visit a related blog: Two Types of Hampster
( Melissa is a Families.com Christian Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/mj7/blog )