Ham Spam

[smolmaus]

I posted about getting a new ham elsewhere (click for post) but thought I could do a wee thread anyway.

First off how they came to me I suppose

State of that like ???

Sorted into clean cages (or at least as clean as I could get them) before new mum #1 came round to pick up the little cream banded lady (artist formerly known as Fluffles) who is no. 3 here.

Other two are staying with me until Saturday when little dove girl (who i have named Chumbawumba) is going to a lovely lady who has been sending me pics of her setup all day. The enthusiasm is just beautiful to see ?

Both girls settling well and both very friendly considering the mess they came from. Its a good thing Chumba has a new home lined up or I'd be very tempted to keep them both!

Still looking for a name for the little girl I'm keeping. She has a lovely little heart on her back so someone has suggested Valentina. Also Taja which is Persian, or Adebayo which is Yoruba and both mean crown or crowned, like Corona but without the connotations ?. So upset we called the flipping car Addie, because I think Adebayo would suit her beautifully ?

Suggestions for ham names or alternative names for a silver Ford fiesta very welcome ?

 

[Shilasdair]

I have to admit, I love a nice hamster. Syrian obviously, not Russian bitey things.

Did you know that, if you give them a clean jam jar in their cage, on its side with shavings in the bottom, they will use it to pee in?

Then you can just wash it out each day - fresh smelling cage.

 

[smolmaus]

Russian bitey things ? my very sweet little hybrid would like a gentle word about this slander!! I've had three russian bitey things so far and never a nibble off any of them! Well maybe one, but poor Poe was blind as a bat by then and couldn't be blamed for mixing up my finger and his dinner.

I do know of the jam jar toilet! Usually all mine take to peeing in sand (in a jar or a dish) fairly quickly but these two ladies are being stubborn about it so far and are peeing behind their wheels.

 

[ycbm]

Awww, cute!

 

[scats]

Gorgeous hammies!
I give mine sand and they always pee in there.

 

[smolmaus]

Gorgeous hammies!
I give mine sand and they always pee in there.

I'm really hoping they catch on to the sand. My last little man when he got older started peeing in his nest and its such a hassle for both me and them to have to tear apart their little beds to clean it.

 

[Chinchilla]

oooooooohhhhhhhhh

I love love love love love them!!!!

 

[IrishMilo]

I love the one you’re keeping - so cute. Your threads have inspired me to get another one.

 

[smolmaus]

I love the one you’re keeping - so cute. Your threads have inspired me to get another one.

Yessssss ? more hams in happy homes!! And more ham threads please lol

She is a perfect little creature. Becoming a bit more standoffish like I suspected she might, given some space and freedom. She has the option to say NO now if she doesn't want to be bothered by big grubby human mitts and I like them to know that.

Her sister, who was much calmer and more food orientated went off to her new home on Saturday with a delightful lady who has been sending me so many videos and pictures. Her new home is fabulous and I think I definitely made the right choice giving her to the less experienced home. She's already so loved ❤ and will be an easy keeper. Her new name is Holly!

My girl still hasn't got a name. It's harder for me to name the girls, my last two boys took about 48 hours till I had perfect ones (Goose and Ragnarock, Raggie for short) and this is almost a week!

 

[IrishMilo]

I think Maggie would suit your girl. My last two were Mr Hammy and Mr Hammybear - I am not the most imaginative when it comes to naming rodents!

 

[smolmaus]

I think Maggie would suit your girl. My last two were Mr Hammy and Mr Hammybear - I am not the most imaginative when it comes to naming rodents!

Maggie is lovely! ❤ but can I name the hamster after my grandmother? lol Even though she was really the one got me started with stories about her hamster back in the 70's, who was also named Hammy! It's a name with a long and distinguished history!

The shortlist is Corazón, Adebayo and Taja which all mean crowned. Or something stupid will come to me like the time the ham came with the name Buttercup and went by Butts to the end of her days ?

 

[splashgirl45]

very cute

 

[poiuytrewq]

My mum went through a stint of breeding hamsters for the local pet shop, I’d be really against that now but at the time it was amazing. We had a whole room full of hamster cages and my sister our friends and I built huge playgrounds for them!
Our Russians were never very friendly either, but brilliant to watch being able to live and interact with each other.

lovely photos ?

 

[Shilasdair]

I once went to a pet rescue centre with a friend, who was picking up a new guinea pig, and I left with an abandoned 'aggressive' hamster and his cage.
He was called 'Big Man', for reasons I never worked out. I still don't know how it happened to me, I think the staff maybe drugged us.

 

[smolmaus]

My mum went through a stint of breeding hamsters for the local pet shop, I’d be really against that now but at the time it was amazing. We had a whole room full of hamster cages and my sister our friends and I built huge playgrounds for them!
Our Russians were never very friendly either, but brilliant to watch being able to live and interact with each other.

lovely photos ?

Better home bred than in a rodent mill somewhere! I have a Russian from a whoops litter and even minimal handling when they're babies makes all the difference in the world, he's a lovely little chap! None of my dwarfs have liked coming out of their cage for playtime or anything but perfectly happy to sit in my hand and have a munch on something tasty.

Little man got a cage clean this evening actually, there's enough winter white in him that we got a little snowy white fluff last year but for 2020 he's just getting angry white eyebrows ?

I once went to a pet rescue centre with a friend, who was picking up a new guinea pig, and I left with an abandoned 'aggressive' hamster and his cage.
He was called 'Big Man', for reasons I never worked out. I still don't know how it happened to me, I think the staff maybe drugged us.

Big man is a fabulous name! Did nobody tell you about hamster hypnosis? Happens to me all the time, go onto gumtree for an end table or near the pets at home rescue section on the way to the cat litter and next thing you know you're building a new cage out of IKEA tables. My poor partner is searching desperately for a cure.

 

[scats]

I was so worried about my new arrival the other day, as she seemed to develop such a fascination to her wheel that she ran herself to the point of exhaustion. She ran from 6pm til 9.30am the next day! I found her wobbling around next to it, startled when I appeared and unable to move properly. She promptly fell asleep where she was. I was convinced she’d had a stroke or something, but the next night she was back up and on it again for hours and hours. The next morning, I found hers asleep in it. Anyway, she seems to be pacing herself a bit better now and is back to behaving like a normal hamster.

 

[smolmaus]

I was so worried about my new arrival the other day, as she seemed to develop such a fascination to her wheel that she ran herself to the point of exhaustion. She ran from 6pm til 9.30am the next day! I found her wobbling around next to it, startled when I appeared and unable to move properly. She promptly fell asleep where she was. I was convinced she’d had a stroke or something, but the next night she was back up and on it again for hours and hours. The next morning, I found hers asleep in it. Anyway, she seems to be pacing herself a bit better now and is back to behaving like a normal hamster.

Oh poor sweet baby! Some people only let them have supervised wheel time when they're babies, I've never felt the need but I've never had one as obsessive as your little lady! ? Hope that's her over the initial runners high!

 

[smolmaus]

Cora was being very cute today! She is very brave with human hands and loves dried apple bits very much. She can also climb up the back of the radiators already! She is trouble and I love it.

[media]

[media]

 

[PurBee]

Awww they are so cute! I’d love to have some but my cats would break my heart and hunt them!

I get to enjoy wild mice sometimes. I go to a very quiet river bank with huge beech trees collecting mushrooms and there’s often tiny mice scampering around me looking for beech nuts. They are soooo adorable to watch!

 

[scats]

She’s gorgeous!

I added a new sand bath area in for my girls. They have sand behind their wheel which they tend to pee in, but I gave them an area where I can hide mealworms and things in. Im hoping to actually use a soil substrate in this part eventually.

 

[smolmaus]

Awww they are so cute! I’d love to have some but my cats would break my heart and hunt them!

I get to enjoy wild mice sometimes. I go to a very quiet river bank with huge beech trees collecting mushrooms and there’s often tiny mice scampering around me looking for beech nuts. They are soooo adorable to watch!

Yes we did have a moment where Marnie cat was screaming and scratching at the door (I assume because I was paying someone else attention, how dare I) while she was running about but Cora didn't twitch a whisker. Terrible instincts lol Hams have their own room tho so never the twain shall meet!

Like something out of the Wind in the Willows!! ? I love watching the yard mice. Of course they are NOT WELCOME but they're so sweet. There is a little family living under the feed bins that nobody has the heart to really get rid of! ?

She’s gorgeous!

I added a new sand bath area in for my girls. They have sand behind their wheel which they tend to pee in, but I gave them an area where I can hide mealworms and things in. Im hoping to actually use a soil substrate in this part eventually.

Two beautiful girls~!! You lucky thing scats. I like your little DIY sand boxes! I had to put Cora's sand up on a platform because she kept digging under the baking dish I have it in and eventually she was going to get squished. I fear she may be very stupid.

Oooh yeah I did Eco Earth once. It's a hassle to wet it down then dry it enough again so it's diggable but not cold. But my last girl Jin had a great time getting filthy. She hid her own snacks in there! ? (I'm sure it also wasn't that price when I got it, you can definitely find it cheaper.)

 

[IrishMilo]

@smolmaus Cora is so gorgeous! I absolutely love her colour. I wanted one just like her but I ended up being lumped with something completely different (OK, I wasn't lumped, but I fell for his sob story!)

@scats Your cages are amazing. You've definitely given me some inspiration.

 

[smolmaus]

@smolmaus Cora is so gorgeous! I absolutely love her colour. I wanted one just like her but I ended up being lumped with something completely different (OK, I wasn't lumped, but I fell for his sob story!)

What a beautiful little dude to be lumped with ? he's so handsome! I'm not a genetics expert but I think grey (maybe silver grey?) trumps golden banded in how difficult they are to breed for. He's a fancy boy!

 

[Kay Burton]

What cute hamsters! I've never had a single hamster in my entire life. I don't know how it happened, but the fact remains. And I don’t know whether to buy a hamster for my children. After all, they do not live long and the death of a pet is a moral trauma for a child.

 

[smolmaus]

What cute hamsters! I've never had a single hamster in my entire life. I don't know how it happened, but the fact remains. And I don’t know whether to buy a hamster for my children. After all, they do not live long and the death of a pet is a moral trauma for a child.

Honestly do not buy a hamster for your children, they are terrible children's pets! And not because of their short lifespans. They are easily frightened, have huge teeth which they use to great effect when frightened, generally don't like to be cuddled and are quite fragile with no real sense of self preservation! Plus they are basically nocturnal a lot of the time.

I don't know how they got a reputation as a suitable pet for children (except perhaps they they are still seen as "disposable" pets, unlike a cat or a dog). They're a suitable pet for an adult who can accept them for what they are, idiot prey animals with 10 times as much energy as they need and whose only real drives are to escape and chew things they shouldn't ?

 

[scats]

What cute hamsters! I've never had a single hamster in my entire life. I don't know how it happened, but the fact remains. And I don’t know whether to buy a hamster for my children. After all, they do not live long and the death of a pet is a moral trauma for a child.

I think the problem with hamsters and kids is that hamsters tend to wake up as kids are going to bed or already in bed so the tendency is for people to wake them up earlier so child can interact and this just makes for an understandably grumpy hamster and a bitten child.
Saying that, I had hamsters as a kid and got on well with them and was never bitten.

 

[Rumtytum]

As a hamless person I am loving this thread especially the pics ?

 

[smolmaus]

I think the problem with hamsters and kids is that hamsters tend to wake up as kids are going to bed or already in bed so the tendency is for people to wake them up earlier so child can interact and this just makes for an understandably grumpy hamster and a bitten child.
Saying that, I had hamsters as a kid and got on well with them and was never bitten.

Oh yeah I had a hamster as a kid as well, I think I was 10? Bitten once when she was out in a hamster ball and fell down the stairs (still maintain this was 100% my sisters fault for putting her on the landing) and the poor baby was fine but chomped right through my finger when I picked her up the next day because she was sore. In the right light you can still see the scar 20 odd years later ? She was a saint though and I would have loved her to bits if she'd had all my fingers off. Not every child is going to be happy with a pet they barely see, who doesn't really show affection and who they can't really "play" with. Basically all the rescues I see are because the kids got bored and I don't really blame the kids.

As a hamless person I am loving this thread especially the pics ?

I call this one "she can't see me if I don't move"

 

[IrishMilo]

Dylan loves his sand bath!

 

[Rumtytum]

Dylan loves his sand bath! View attachment 61672View attachment 61673View attachment 61674

Fab pics, I needed some hamspam! Does Dylan have a sand bath followed by a little mug of Cadbury’s hot chocolate ??