Hamster update

Man has it been a crazy week with this darn hamster and "his" babies!!lol Let me start by saying that I have gotten very attached to them. They are really cute (and not in a ratty kinda way), but it has been very stressful. In fact, this may have proven to be too stressful for Jessica as the hamsters are now in the office.

Let's go back to Sunday night. Jess was at her dad's for the weekend, therefore, the hamsters weren't getting any attention. But that is ok...because for the first 10 days you are to do nothing for them except change mama bear's food and water. Saturday morning, before soccer, we checked on them and all was fine...Sunday evening, I went into the room to find that the cage had been knocked off of Jessica's nightstand and was UPSIDE DOWN on the floor! Yes, I freaked! I was in shock. I could not move. Delaney was with me and all I could do was tell her to go get her daddy! Well, I spent the next hour and a half looking for mama and babies. There were only 2 babies (out of 8) left in the cage. We VERY CAREFULLY moved everything out of Jessica's room in hopes to find everone else. Starting with the dirty clothes on the floor (darn pre~teens and there lack of tidiness). I was only able to find 1 more baby over by her dresser. OK. Good starting place. I moved everything out from under her dresser....nope nothing! OK..I picked up the bed skirt. One little baby wiggling around upside down. Scott and I moved the mattress and box spring off of the bed in hopes that mama and the rest of the babies would be under there. I only found one more. So now, we have 5 babies in the cage. Not knowing what else to do, I just left the cage door open through the night in hopes that mama would come back to her lonely babies. I checked in on them at 1am...no change. 8am...nothing...

Monday morning I called the vet's office to see if they could help me with anything. She could only advise me to put hamster food outside the cage and hope that mama would come back. She also gave me the number to an Exotic Animal Vet in the area. I really wanted to know if there was anything I could do for the babies in hopes that they wouldn't starve to death. She told me to feed them KMR (kitten replacer milk) every 2-4 hours. Holy, that is more than a newborn. Not sure if Jessica sensed something from school, but she called saying she was sick. Scott told her what happened on the way home and once she was home, she found mama and remaining 3 babies. She had them in the back corner of her closet, made a nest for them and had a huge stash of food for them. Once they were all back in the cage, it took Delilah a while to settle down, but did make a new nest for them and started nursing them all again.

We now have a heating pad under the cage to help keep the babies warm.

It is hard to get a really good look because if she is not on the babies, she has them covered up pretty good, but I think there are only 4 or 5 of the babies left. Sad, but everything that I have read says that with a first time mother, she may kill them all because she doesn't know what to really do with them. So from the beginning we said we would like to see all 8 survive, but we will be happy with half of them.

We have been giving Delilah the KMR twice a day to try and help her keep up her energy to raise these babies. We are on day #6. On day 6 or 7 we can try to feed the babies small pieces of apple and/or cooked veggies.

The only thing we could think of was that the cat had gotten in there and knocked the cage down.

I have tried a couple times to get a picture, but have not managed to get one yet. I will post one as soon as I do.



PS..if there is anyone out there that knows what else I can/need to do, please let me know.

This is what happened

Let's rewind to Sunday morning after Jess' party on Saturday. She came to me and said that she wanted to buy a hamster with her birthday money. Since she has been bugging me for, oh, I don't know, about a year about a darn hamster, and my response to her is always the same. "Save up your money and you can get one." Well, she now has the money, so I can't really say no. Right? Right!

Off to PetSmart we go. We check out all the different types of hamsters (did you know there was more than one type? I didn't. A hamster is a hamster, Right? WRONG!!) Jessica went with the Miniature Chinese hamster. He was SO tiny, and actually kinda cute. In a furry, rat kinda way. ( I stress HE because the sign clearly stated "male" and the kind woman working said to me, and I quote "We only sell males because we don't want to have to separate male and female and we don't want little babies". Great! We'll take that one!
click on the picture, very clearly says "male"

Jess had a friend with her. Here is the brief conversation we had:

Jess~ I am going to name her Delilah.

Me ~ But it is a boy.

Jess ~ No, it's a girl.

Me~ No, the woman said they only sell boys. Why do you say it is a girl?

Jess & Friend~ We looked! (insert giggles)

Me~ Oh..OK...Maybe it's parts are too small and you just can't see it! ( I know, so wrong to say to a 12 and 13 year old, but they have already had the sex ed class in school)

Since we already have a boy cat named Sasha, I figured what will it hurt to have a boy hamster named Delilah.

Fast forward to this afternoon around 3ish. The boys were just waking up from their nap. I was on the phone with my sister (she was at work and I am wondering if the conversation was recorded) Delaney comes down stairs and here is this conversation:

Delaney~ Mommy, mommy, I was in the bonus room watching TV and I heard Jess' radio playing, so I decided to go lay on her bed and listen to her music. I was just laying there listening and I looked at her pet and it has..." here is where it gets a little fuzzy, I think she said...no...noway...

Me~What did you just say, Delaney?

Delaney~ I was upstairs in the bonus room watching TV and...

Me~ No, no, skip to the part about Jess' pet...

Delaney~ Her pet has babies!

ME~Babies? Are you sure?

Delaney~ shaking her head and grinning

Me~ Delaney, don't joke with me. Are there REALLY babies up there?

Delaney~yes mommy (still grinning)

ME~ Delaney, if I go upstairs and find out you are only joking, I am going to be very upset. Are you joking with me?

Delaney~ No!

at this point, because Delaney likes to play silly little jokes on people, I did not know if I should believe her or not. I dash up the stairs and....yep, Delaney is right... There are babies...
(I did apologize to Delaney for not believing her)

Eight of them! Yes 8. 8 little baby hamsters that I now have to raise. At some point, I have to take them away from their mother, figure out which are male and which are female (guess I can have Jess and her friend help with this one) and put them in separate cages so we don't have even MORE babies!

ONLY ME!!

OH...And I have called PetSmart to let them know that there boy hamster that they sold me now is a mother of 8! I swear if I was face to face with that little sh*t when he giggled at me I would have slapped him into next week!!

With that said, they did offer a few options

1 They would take every thing I bought and give me a full refund for it.

2 They would take mommy and babies and give me a replacement hamster (male, we promise)

3 They could take mommy and babies, keep them until the babies are old enough to wean from mommy and then give us mommy back.

4 They will give us extra food and bedding

I let Jess make the decision. She picked THIS hamster from all the others. This is the one she wanted. She is not ready to hand it back over for any amount of time. So, we are going tomorrow to pick up the extra food and bedding and see if I can talk them into giving me at least one more cage since I am going to have to get two more!!

Man this sucks!

On a side note...in about 8 weeks I will have a few hamsters to give away. If there is anyone close by that would like one for the low, low cost of $0, just let me know!