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.

death

Peanut passed away during the day yesterday.

In memory of this cute little peanut, here are some photos...

Frazzled peanut, fur damp from my hand. Wiping himself frantically!

Peering out of my grasp =)

And peering more intently!

you can't separate the butter from peanut butter

Delicious Spread
Butter See, Peanut Do

Hey peanut, nice and round you are! What are you looking at?

Nothing la...hee =)

There you go again, peanut! Distracted.

Nothing la...hee =)

He gets bored, so I place him back in his cage and try to get Butter out. But peanut climbs onto my hand as well! Attention seeker...

Peanut butter climbing all over my hand. Peering left and right.

Peanut tries to explore the ball of my palm and ends up nearly slipping down.

Dark picture of peanut curled into a ball while butter looks downwards.

Their positions quite boring. Never change!

stop being so cute!

Peanut butter! Peanut peanut peanut butter! Aww...how brotherly! =)

an hour in the life of a nut

Say cheese! =) Behold peanut and his stillness!

Hmph! Of course I can stay still...wanna bet?

Told you so =P Say what again peanut? Stunned look.

Ha. I'm cuter! -Butter says as he peers at me. He has been sitting still for over a minute!

Right after the food is put in...this is the scene. A short moment of shock as the cage door clanks shut. Locking them in again for another 12 hours. Then, the aroma of the food wafts up to their noses and...CLICK, something in their brain snaps and they make a mad dash for the food bowl and DIVE IN. Can you almost hear them shouting "daddy!!! we want a bigger food dish =("

Right, now peanut is screaming "daddy!!! we want a bigger food serving!"

At another angle. Peanut turns round and round.

Please, daddy?? No...peanut. Tonight! =)

hamster delight

Did you know that gerbils wink when they are happy? Google gerbil winking for some cool pictures =)

Now, for some cool pictures of our own...

Hey man...look at me run! On and on and on. Meanwhile, look at peanut's stuffed cheeks =)

Like lightning, you can barely see him =D perhaps it's the camera shutter speed. Hmm. Butter has other ideas.

And here, behold the two nuts chewing on hamster delight!! Pellet food which they love.

Peanut beneath the wheel, looking all peaceful =)

looking at...

Herby and gerby's tank reminds me of the earth. How every plate is shifting beneath our feet. The ever constant change of landscape and shifts of the ground.

Peanut and butter's cage reminds me of the palace. How royalty lives with servants at their beck and call to serve them twice a day. The perpetual routine of eating and sleeping and playing.

Cookie and cream's cage reminds me of a gym. How every gymnast climbs and jumps and tiptoes gracefully. The all-so-cute look they have on their faces when we go near.

Cotton's cage reminds me of...a cage. No kidding. It's the humblest abode of all. So simple that he has no choice but to self-entertain by climbing all over. And pee all over. Poor cotton. I should get him an enclosed house!

updates =)

Herby and Gerby now have this tunnel (made of toilet roll) which goes under their food dish. I think the rationale is to make a hole below their dish so that the food just falls in and gets automatically buried. But they didn't figure how they were going to dig through the dish.

Nah, kidding.

But their tunnel is cool. It's the first toilet roll they didn't mutilate. Another one inside is being chewed up.

Peanut and butter are ever so adorable. Whatever cool gene they have, their size is so perfect that how we wish we had a female counterpart to mate with them! Ah welllll...

They are so obedient now that they allow me to sayang their back. They still feel icky when i stroke their white sides. But I guess I don't like the feeling too!

close ups

Presenting.....PEANUT BUTTER, the TAME roborovskis!

"Hello! =)" -Butter, held by 3 of my fingers around his tummy and not stuggling.

Butter looks really stunned. Hey, is this daddy? What happened to mummy? =(

Ohh...mummy has to run some errands...butter understands! =)

Hey look what's that? Nice toys down there!! I don't know who was more scared of who, but I was freaked out when Butter jumped down from that height into the box. Luckily no injuries and he's still running around crazily =)


And look who's there? The wonderful peanut! He loves sitting on the big lump of flesh just below the thumb. Maybe he likes the warmness? But he allowed me to take this beautiful photo of him!

And behold, again, Peanut! From the top this time =)

Pose, nut! Pose! *Stones* Pose, please?? *Stones* Oh well, he likes his stone face on camera! Right, peanut? =D

I feel like a long way up, daddy...I know that's my toy, but pleasee put me down?

Looking sadly at the toys just out of reach =(

Daddy, pleaseeeee??

I guess I didn't find him cute enough to keep him on my hand any longer =P joking...but here he excitedly climbs off my hand!

And poof. He's gone!


Peeping out at his surroundings.

And here, on the lookout for the big pink thing with the camera!!

Gotcha, peanut butter! =D

playthings and nestthings

Peanut butter enjoy their toys so much that they have inherited Cookie and creamy's wooden castle =) They run over it, hide under it, pose on top of it. Just worried they mis-use it and jump from it. It would be disastrous, especially if out of the box.

But anyway, glad for them! Glad they like the box and it's nice to see them exercising themselves =)

Herby and gerby did something really funny. When being transported, they pushed ALL the bedding out of their cool burrow and cowered in there with only the glass bottom and the wooden log sides for company. After they stabilized, though, they moved it all back and they are fine now! Just heard them shredding a piece of cardboard for their nest addition!

party of seven

Everyday now the routine is:

In the morning, mummy will take out all the older hammies and put them in their balls. The small nuts get maze time, while the gerbils are handled one by one.

At night, the bigger hammies get play pen time while the small nuts are put in their maze again. As for the gerbils, in the afternoon, they get to play in the play pen as they are rather restless in their tank.

Oh, did I mention they now have soil? It's way cool. We buried two secret compartments beneath the soil, and they dug both up to reveal the artificial burrows and spend most of the day lazing around inside!

The soil we use cannot really hold up. We added small bedding to the soil to firm it as well as to absorb odour, but it's starting to smell a lot like...soil. It didn't when we first started, and it has only been one day! We hope the smell doesn't take a turn for the worse =)

Cotton has also been neglecting his food. Put in quarter spoonful of organic every morning and night, and he always leaves some in his dish. Bad eating habits adopted at daddy's house? Perhaps =( Anyway, we plan to give him nut mix in the morning and organic at night. To make sure that he gains the weight he has to before we try introducing him to cookie and cream again! Only worry is that we give too much nut mix and he STILL neglects his organic food at night!

Cookie and cream are way cute, but they have been fighting with each other more often these days. Keep squeaking loudly at each other in their cage. But they still huddle and sleep together, so we're hoping they won't fight too much!

The only change is that cotton has been living around cooks and cream for 10 days etc. And the play pen we split to give the big hamsters a barrier through which they can see other. Quite a heartening sight when cotton tries to grab them through the bars, but they do squeak at each other across too! At least they can't tear each others' =)

gerby pregnant?

Recently, herby and gerby have begun to nest. A common sign that babies are coming, because they don't really bother building a bed to make the babies.

But, gerby's tummy is still quite flat, and it's still above my palm when she's on. Besides, she is actually smaller than herby now, and she was larger than him about 3 weeks back.

Wait, so they are...11 weeks old now. That's mating age actually. I really don't know, except that we can only wait and see.

Oh yeah, recently they have been sleeping together a lot, sometimes even just resting together with their eyes closed. Sounds like a protective dad-to-be eh.

If their gestation is 28 days, and the likely maturity is 8 to 10 weeks, then in about 2 weeks gerby should be showing. Like, pear shaped and with a rippling tummy.

We shall see!

Meanwhile, peanut and butter are having their own fun, oblivious to the potential baby factory next to them (we hope!) =D they were very guai today, allowing me to hold them for more than a minute each, before I let them explore their new toy again, and let them play with my hand which they used as a tunnel and a slide and a climb-over all-in-one =D

What fantastic hamsters they are!

Yikes, but they peed in the box. I guess that could not have been helped. But I wiped it and hope it dries up =)

hey mummy, look!

We have a new toy! =)



Nice toy huh, mummy? We can climb up it and go through it. We can slide down it and chew on it. We absolutely adore it!!! But we hate our photos being taken with it =D

Peanut and butter were the absolute sweeties today. Kept really still (both of them!) for at least 2 minutes and managed to take more than 50 shots in succession but I'll upload only a couple =)

First up.....butter!

Oh no mummy, I swear there's something out to get me. I'll run as fast as I can if it tries!

Ah whatever, I need to adjust my fur! This body has so much fur now I must clean a million times each day!


Aww, ain't he cute? What a sweetie! Submissively lying on daddy's hand =)

And now, presenting the AL-MIGHTY....peanut!

1) Hmmph! Not facing the camera. See who wins =P
2) *Peeks* it's still there??? Cheh!
3) Argh....why won't it leave!
4) Ok la ok la. Cheese =D


Where's mummy? Is she in the camera?

Maybe I can sniff her out. She has been hiding from us!


Mummy kiss me!! *turns cheek*