Our current setup

Part 2

The long long awaited part 2!!!

Apologies guys. Got caught up with work, but rest assured, the hammies and gerbies are all carefully tended too on a daily basis, or whenever we walk past their tank area.

Fatty lives in the biggest cage of them all. Her plastic box is durable, accessible and livable. Her entire floor is covered with fluffy bedding, and she often makes a nice mound to sleep on. Fatty eats the most too, as she is the biggest. She's also the first of our hamsters to use the toilet we gave her. She comes toilet trained =)

Salt and Pepper live together. Well, almost. They are separated by the divider in their cage, as we do not want them to mate. They still remain the best of friends, and they enjoy playing together in the playpen. Sometimes, they can be found lying next to each other by the divider. They groom each other through the bars, and Salt loves climbing up to the top, even doing monkey bars. Perhaps she's showing off to Pepper? =P

Last but not least...BUTTER! He's the fastest, the smallest, the hardest to catch, and a whole lot of other superlatives which there aren't English words for. He's our only roborovski hamster at the moment, and he's white-faced too! He runs at the speed of light, and is not very easy to catch. He has the best cage in a tank setup.

More to come!

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.

split pen failure

I regret putting Cotton and Pepper together in the split pen. Pepper jumped from my hand and they formed a fatal hammieball.

Cotton got injured; I gave him arnica, and now he's sleeping (albeit a little ruffled up and sigh....hurt).

He's less receptive to my hand now...shies away when I reach into his cage. So I just gave him a bit more fluff and one ikan bilis (he finished his previous once). I also gave him a wooden toy clipped to the side. But for now, he's just sleeping. Poor him.

Get well soon, cotton.

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!

the babies

This is a post dedicated to our two babies, Salt and Pepper. They are very grown up now! In fact, as of today, they are 3 weeks old!

Hello, Salt! Looking for something?

Salt wanders out of her house...

...and inspects around.

Meanwhile, Pepper is already outside. He looks in the corner.

And presses his nose against the plastic tank. Looking for something, Pepper?

Aha he found it. The chew stick! Which was not in the corner.

We are proud to say that Pepper is able to stand up without falling backwards! Salt falls backwards, but hope she learns. And pepper, being the ever lovable hamster, lets you pick him up, and will even crawl onto mummy's hand!

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!

Our Babies

Litter #6
Date of birth: 27 October 2009
Dad: Herby
Mom: Gerby
Number of pups: 7
Names: unconfirmed
Description: 6 golden agouti and 1 argente golden

Home(s): unconfirmed

Litter #5
Date of birth: 30 August 2009
Dad: Herby
Mom: Gerby
Number of pups: 4
Names: Chestnut, Ash, and others

Description: 2 golden agouti females, 1 golden agouti male and 1 argente golden male

Home(s): Chestnut (argente golden male) and Ash (golden agouti male) live with Alan, while the 2 girls live with Daniel.

Litter #4
Date of birth: 22 June 2009
Dad: Herby
Mom: Gerby
Number of pups: 5
Names: Riley, Kiley, Ziley, and others
Description: 2 golden agouti females, 2 golden agouti males and 1 argente golden male
Home(s): Riley (argente golden male), Kiley and Ziley (golden agouti males) live with Yang, while the other 2 still live with Jamal.

Updates: http://twyangzii.webs.com/gerbils.htm

Litter #3
Date of birth: 16 May 2009
Dad: Herby
Mom: Gerby
Number of pups: 5 (after 1 died)
Names: Hina, Vienna, and others
Description: 3 golden agouti females, 1 golden agouti male and 1 argente golden female
Home(s): Hina (golden agouti female) and Vienna (argente golden female) live with Xinyi, while the other 3 golden agouti gerbils went to Pets Village at Suntec City.

Litter #2
Date of birth: 6 May 2009
Dad: Cotton
Mom: Cookie
Number of pups: 3
Names: Ashoka, [unknown names for the other 2]
Description: Ashoka is a sapphire winter white female and the other 2 are pearl winter white males
Home(s): Ashoka the sapphire winter white lives with Ms Jo's sons, while the 2 pearl winter whites live with aunty Cora's friend

Litter #1
Date of birth: 30 March 2009
Dad: Cotton
Mom: Cream
Number of pups: 2 (after 1 died)
Names: Salt, Pepper
Description: Salt is a pearl winter white female, Pepper is a sapphire winter white male
Home(s): with us

Photos

The list of videos are at the bottom!

Uncut! Photo Albums
(These contain photos which have not been uploaded onto the blog. But they will be forever and forever.)

• Batch 0-II, now under album 'Hamsters & Gerbils'
• The secret photos, now under album 'Uncut! Hamsters & Gerbils'
• Edited on: 24 May 2011

• Batch II
• Batch I
• Batch 0 (2008 till April 2009):
• Batch 0
• the secret photos I
  
• the secret photos
  

Photo Posts

Group posts! (Has photos of most of our babies, even the big ones!)

• 1 September 2009: Some cute photos =)
• 2 June 2009: big move to new house
• 25 May 2009: Babies' new (smaller) tank
• 13 May 2009: broccoli!

Salt and Pepper

• 13 May 2009: mummy, i am hungry
• 22 April 2009: the babies

Fatty

• 20 April 2009: Sleepy post
• 2 April 2009: cutie!
  

Cookie, Cream and Cotton

• 4 May 2009: cookie is pregnant!
• 2 April 2009: cookie and cream
  
• 15 Feb 2009: cookie's new home
  
• 12 Feb 2009: photo album of yet another wash day
  
• 8 Feb 2009: the preggy ones
  
• 8 Feb 2009: the cute one
  
• 5 Feb 2009: cookie, cream and cotton
  Part 1 | Part 2
• 1 Feb 2009: photos of cookie =)
  

Peanut and Butter

• 22 Feb 2009: you can't separate the butter from peanut butter
  
• 12 Feb 2009: stop being so cute!
  
• 11 Feb 2009: an hour in the life of a nut
  
• 4 Feb 2009: hamster delight
  
• 31 Jan 2009: close ups
  
• 18 Jan 2009: dear mummy...
  
• 18 Jan 2009: hey mummy, look!
  
• 15 Jan 2009: say hello!
  

Herby and Gerby

• 5 August 2009: Our gerbils
• 20 July 2009: gerbils, second litter
• 1 July 2009: gerbil babies are off to a new home
• 22 June 2009: A new litter, again
• 3 June 2009: gerbil babies, gerbies?
• 16 May 2009: PUSHHHHHHHHHHHH gerbs!
• 28 April 2009: give the gerbils a box
• 20 April 2009: Sleepy post
• 17 Mar 2009: a day in the life of a gerbil
  
• 19 Feb 2009: let's party!
  
• 5 Feb 2009: the tunnel below the food
  
• 31 Jan 2009: awesome burrow
  
• 18 Jan 2009: great nest (the photos)
  
• 15 Jan 2009: open skies
  

Videos

• 1 July 2009: Food time
• 12 June 2009: hey there fatty =)
• 11 June 2009: i thought the gerbils didn't run their wheel
• 10 June 2009: wheel runners
• 7 June 2009: splits and divides
• 25 May 2009: babies playing
• 15 Feb 2009: kablazam
  
• 3 Feb 2009: cookie and cotton mating
  

Our Hammies

Click on their names to see all entries related to them!

Salt and Pepper

These two bundles of joy were born to Cotton and Cream on the 1st of April in 2009. They are both dwarf hamsters, of course, and as their name indicates, they are white and black respectively. Salt is female, and pepper is male.

Fatty

Our one and only Syrian hamster is one big female, and she cannot fit into one hand properly. She has a patched coat of gold and white, and is the cutest hamster of all, having an oh-so-cute! teddy bear face.

Butter

Butter is light brown, and he is our smallest hamster, being a Roborovski. He's also the fastest of them all, although his small legs do not bring him farther than the rest. But you should see him on his wheel.

Cotton

He bites, he runs, he eats. Who's that? Cotton. He's white and lean, and is one of the few hamsters out there who climbs into his food dish and climbs out again, not taking a single nut. Sometimes he even leaves sunflower seeds, although they love it so much. Cotton!

Cookie and Cream

These are our first two hamsters. They are sapphire winter whites and they are currently separated as Cream is still not used to Cookie after her pregnancy. We have weaned Salt and Pepper from her, but they live and run individually now. They are friendly, don't bite, and Cookie is nice and round now. Bet you would want to hold her!

Requiescat in pace

• Tac
  
  Tac lived a short life of eleven days. She was born of Cotton and Cream together with Salt and Pepper (formerly Tic and Toe; Tic Tac Toe, get it?). We found her dead in the cage that morning.

• Peanut
  
  Our other Roborovski hamster, formerly paired with Butter. He was smaller than Butter. In fact, both were smaller than the size of our thumb when we got them at a young age of 3 weeks.

• Cream

Cream passed away on the 8th of January, 2010. She passed away from cancer, but even in her last few days, she was still very active, and ran the wheel a lot. It's sad that neither hammiemummy or myself were at home when she passed on. But, Cream will always be remembered. She was Cookie's good friend, but later on, after a period of separation, she lived alone. She was good friends with Cotton, and they can even be cuddled together in one hand. She was a good-tempered hamster who appeared fierce on the outside. Live on in our hearts, Cream.