RIP

Good bye, Cream. You were wonderful.

She was still running the wheel this afternoon, yet no one saw her pass away. She was a great hamster, and still is in our hearts.

This is her life: recorded down

Our current setup

Part 1

Herby and Gerby live in their own tank. They have a cardboard toy to chew up (we bought it from Pet Lover's) which is in the shape of a doll house thing. It has a back porch and a front yard and fences and an upstairs balcony. Sorry we don't have any photos =( Now, the whole basement has been chewed up and it's kind of lopsided. But nevertheless, our gerbils continue to sleep upstairs and in the rooms.

Cookie lives in our smallest tank; she has a dino for her house, and she really loves fluffing the fluff =) she is rather minimalistic, having only a wheel for company. But hey, she runs pretty fast! Cream lives in our orange cage, and she has a wooden house for sleeping under. However, she prefers to fluff up the fluff and bury herself underneath it all. Sometimes we have difficulties spotting her!

Cotton lives in our blue cage, which is identical to the orange cage, except for it's colour. Haha. He has his big green house (our first house we bought) and loves it. We can often hear him scrabbling around and arranging the fluff inside the house. Neurotic!

Watch out for Part 2 over the next few days! =) it will contain details about Fatty, Butter, Salt & Pepper! =)

The Munchkins...have been revived!

With a bang!

Cookie & Cream still live separate. Both are really really old. As of the time of writing, they are 14 months old! Closely following behind is Cotton, at 13 months. Our 3 oldest hamsters. Guess who's our oldest gerbil? Well, that's easy. We only have 2 old gerbils. Herby and Gerby! And they keep giving birth like crazy. Maybe the saying 'breeding like rats' have some truth to them. But hey! Don't call them rats; they don't like it. 'Gerbil' is a better word for um...a better rat =)

Anyway, Herby and Gerby are officially parents to 23 babies! One died, so there are 22 of Herby and Gerby's kiddos out there! Imagine...22 of Herby and Gerby's replicas running around, eating, sleeping, chewing, hanging around... Cool eh? If you add the numbers (refer to the 'Babies' section out there), it's only 21! The last 2 are part of the new litter! =) Only 2 yeah...as 3 others died due to unknown reasons (perhaps due to immaturity at birth). Hope these two survive! It's one lighty (who's fat) and one agouti (who's active).

Cotton is as friendly as ever, he always wants to make friends with Cream and Cookie, but they respond differently.

Cream is quite receptive to Cotton; she will snuggle up with him, but if he tries to get too close, she'll squeak. Cookie will squeak as long as Cotton is within 5 cm of her. In fact, she may even SQUEAK and back off and fly off your hand. Sometimes, when we wake her up for dinner, she'll squeak really loudly and fly out of her dino house and try to bite you. I guess that's what you get for trying to wake a hamster!

That's all for today! Look forward to...

(1) Our current setup

(2) Our current food regime

the hammie house

Finally, an update for the month of August! I shall not make any empty promises, but I'll try to update at least once a week!

The pet shop at Bukit Timah Plaza sold us rotten pet food a few weeks ago, so we went back to exchange it, and got a new nut mix in return! The mix is rather unhealthy though, it consists of plenty of sunflower seeds, and oats! That's the good part. The oats is like organic food, and it took a while to get the hammies to eat the oats (they only ate the sweets!). Cookie proved to be the toughest of all; she starved herself whenever we refused to top up her food. Until a few days ago, where we looked in her bowl and...all the oats were gone! She's been eating well ever since =)

 

Anyway...here's Herby being naughty and sleeping through the day =P

And just as I tried to get a closer shot, he flipped over and lay on his side.

Aww...

Here's Butter under his wheel. He's as small as ever, and he's still scared of our hand...not sure what else can help but just a lot of patience and care! At least he doesn't go flying from our hands often!

And here's Butter pondering over his overturned food dish.

And in his specially prepared nest!

I think he's really awesome. A little worried about him now as he's losing fur over his right back leg. Perhaps it's the (1) new bedding, (2) new food, or the (3) grass. The first photo shows our new bedding. We decided to try it as it's cheaper. It's paper, and seems to absorb well. No major complaints!

Presenting...Cookie!

She's really flat.

And Fatty, of course. On the lookout!

 

The Hammie House.

Cookie bit Cream

Just tonight, Cookie bit Cream rather hard on her face, and Cream is running around in her own box, while the wound closes up. We hope that she heals soon, and we wonder why Cookie did it. Poor Cream =(

reintroduction

We reintroduced Cookie and Cream yesterday. Cream's behavior is just that of a bully. She takes pride in being able to flip Cookie over into a submissive wailing position. And we were so worried that Cookie would not be able to get any rest being chased around by Cream all day long. Or rather, all night long.

But this morning, we saw the both of them sleeping together in the house. Oh how cool is that! The reintroduction worked, and we hope that they will continue to be good friends as they were at the start =)

splits and divides

Cookie and Cream split cage:

We swap their sides once every day, in order to get them to be used to the other's smell. This arrangement has been going on for 2 weeks already, but Cream is still aggressive towards Cookie, and Cookie keeps screaming when she sees Cream.

Cotton and Pepper temporary split playpen:

I placed the both of them on either side, and observed them. Pepper made aggressive noises like Cream, but Cotton was unfazed. This behaviour is unlike Cookie's cower-and-run tactic. Perhaps Cotton has more man in him than we thought he had! The video shows the both of them standing down each other for 2+ minutes. Observing the other. Weighing their chances. They probably know that they cannot get at each other through the bars (before this, they were jumping and squeaking and boxing through the split!).

I hope to build the split tank (shall go take measurements now) soon, and as soon as salt gives birth (probably anytime soon), I'll move Pepper and Cotton into the split tank.

I am optimistic about that arrangement, and I hope that the split tank will be of great use in future.

big move to new house

Here goes: the BIG move to a new cage!

Why the move?

People were adopting our babies (litter #2), and we planned to give away our small blue alex cage with the 2 male whities (see Our Babies) to aunty's friend. Therefore, Salt and Pepper (current residents of the small blue cage) had to move. Into cream's big pink cage! With 3 storeys (though we removed a storey, so it's only double decker now). A big change for aunty Cora's babies.

As of last saturday, aunty's friend has successfully adopted the 2 whities. Left alone in her medium-sized tank is blackie (only a pet name!).

Enough talk. Here are the photos =)

I could not find many photos of Salt and Pepper running around their new cage, because the first thing they did was to run the wheel in tandem!

Meanwhile, we moved Cookie and Cream together into a split cage. We have been switching their positions (left and right) up to twice a day, hoping that they will get used to each others smell. Hopefully it works, if not we are faced with a logistic nightmare.

See the beautiful cage? Their floor space is not much, but decent at least. They have one wheel each, one bottle, one food dish, one nest. Till today, Cookie still keeps screaming when Cream comes near. Only consolation is that Cream has stopped hissing near Cookie. Hope the split works! =)

Meanwhile, since we are on the topic of houses, Herby and Gerby's big new tank is pretty cool.

broccoli!

Broccoli is a healthy vegetable which most children are picky about. But not our babies. In fact, they love it.

Presenting...

Herby!


Fatty!


Cotton! He looks half asleep.


Butter!


Salt and Pepper! Umm...I think they have finished eating...


Cookie!


Cream!


They are fed fresh food (broccoli, carrot) once every few days. And they sure look forward to it each time! Well..apart from cream, who only ate one small piece today. She turned her nose at the other pieces. Pepper, on the other hand, grabbed two pieces from me. Salt got another piece, but she ate less.

Herby and Gerby wasted theirs today. Ate half and threw it on the floor. I picked up the stalk and put it in their food dish.

Let's hope they are not getting sick of it already!

salt and pepper

Cream gave birth, the morning of two wednesdays ago (the first of April). Nope, it's not a joke! The babies are already twelve days old =)

cookie and cream

In case any of you have been wondering, what happened to cookie? And her pregnancy?

Let's get some facts right. Cookie was not pregnant. She was just...fat. And to think that I smsed Aunty Cora everyday to check on Cookie and whether she had popped. But nothing to pop, never pop.

And in fact, just two days ago, Cream gave birth.

In the middle of the night, to three (number pending verification) healthy pups!

We can see one of them here:

This pink thing which moves and squeals. Yes, it squeals a high pitched squeal, which is often heard when they accidentally come unlatched from feeding position. And they only grow silent when Cream painstakingly gathers them all and cleans them. Don't you think she's awesome?

We don't have many pregnant photos, as we only realised Cream was pregnant 2 days before she gave birth. And we are not lousy hamster owners, just that we had been observing her grow to Cookie's size, and we thought she was fat, until we took a photo of her:

I think it's quite obvious that her neck is rather skinny till her shoulders, before she sort of pears out into a pear shape. Nice tummy there, Cream!

Meanwhile, what of poor Cookie? Cream turned aggressive just one day before she gave birth, and we had to move poor Cookie into a spare plastic tank which we had:

Cookie, in her small tank, scouting her cardboard box and carboard tube and new red bottle. (Note: not all in picture)

Anyway, she fell asleep soon enough in what I call, the pokeball position. I choose you, COOKIE-MON!

cookie's new home

Home Sweet Home
Where's Cream? =(

To our faithful readers, if you haven't already figured out, our Cookie is pregnant. Yep, and she's due anytime soon (18 - 21 days), so, in order to let her have peace of mind to care for her first litter, we decided to move her into a new cage. Here's cookie in her new home =)

Cookie explores her new home. She goes straight to the house with the comfy cotton inside...hmmmm new smell, she says!

Can I go behind? Behind? This is so cool! I'm getting a new house!

Cookie goes into the house, and explores.

Haha that's my new wheel too! Why is it green? Did mummy pick this? I told her my favourite colour is pink! =(

I tell her that I picked it.

Aha, my dish, maybe there's food... *peers in*

Not yet, cookie!

Wow, I've never seen this before...what's the sky blue thing? Can I grab it? Cookie climbs the back wall of her new cage.

Meanwhile...

Cream sulks as she wonders why cookie isn't with her. She even climbs...and peers over, and...OH NO
She spots cookie's new cage...and climbs the side, trying to get through.

I want to go over there, daddy! Cream bites the cage =(

She doesn't give up, climbing up and back down, and again, and again.

But cookie is oblivious. She climbs up to the second floor...and looks around, and in the distance...

OH NO! She hurries back down. Why is cream over there? =(

I must rescue her!! *runs down*

And they meet, albeit not in the way they expected. With horror they realise that there's a wall separating them. And they bite and bite. Fortunately they gave up more easily than when they bite the playpen.

Cookie refuses to give up; she climbs again, trying to get to cream.

And hangs there forlornly.

Poor cookie.

But...we hope that they will still remember each other.

What a day!

cream is furious

Ok, ok. Creamy...I'll get more photos of you...

Poor cream! =(

photo album of yet another wash day

Cookie Cream Cotton
The preggy the not-so-preggy and the impregnator (um, should this be censored?)

Cotton sure looks pretty ugly when he's woken from his sleep! =P

He stands upright and observes my camera. Curious curious cotton!

Meanwhile, cookie tries to grab my attention. Way to go cooks! But uh...be careful of that preggy tummy? I can't really tell which way's up.

In the playpen......

They mingle, cotton keeps smelling them. Sigh cotton, they are ALREADY pregnant!

Never gives up. Even when cookie is obviously fat. Cotton looks about as fat but it's an illusion! =)

After placing them in, cookie goes to her favourite corner and sits down on her butt.

Meanwhile, cotton leaves a big mess...yes, that's from his skinny-looking cheek pouch......

......and curls up to sleep. Guys will be guys huh. Sleep anywhere =(

I didn't want to disturb him (at least he won't be climbing out).

So here comes some photos of cookie and cream in the hand!

Watch out! No no that's cotton's cage below you! (yeah, photo taken before wash I think, order a bit mixed)

Cookie in the direction of the computer. When is mummy coming on again, sighs the cute little fat hammie =)

Bumshot and sideshot. Cookie's patterned coat is really really obvious! =) Must be stretched a lot =D (ps I think I'm getting better at this photoblog thing =P)


Last but not least, hey there cookie!!! =) (post-wash)