Hamster blindness... from old age

After 10+ years of keeping hamsters, I realised that 2 of my hamsters had actually turn blind upon old age. Especially my hamster, Dou Gay, he had cataract as I can see his eyeballs had white spots covering the pupils.

As hamsters age, we, as owners, need to help the hamsters adjust the environment.

I had friends who ask me to put my hamsters to sleep but I am strong believer that hamster should live to their end of lifespan. It is very unnatural  to put them to sleep just because they are blind unless they have further injuries that are causing their pain.

Things to do to help your blind hamsters
1) Remove of obstacles

• Housing/Cage
• If your hamster is currently living in 2 storey (floor) cage, it is time to remove the 2nd storey and convert it to a single deck cage. This can prevent your hamster from falling off the 2nd storey. (one of my hamster did fall off from the 2nd storey before he paralyses and die shortly afterwards, hard lesson for me)

• Avoid new staff/toy and keep same cage layout
• I know owners alike love to give new toys to hamsters. However, if your hamster is blind, I strongly recommend that the cage layout to be simple, without obstacles, and most importantly hamster access friendly. You don't want to injury your hamster in anyway possible.

• Water bottle
• I strongly recommend that the water bottle to be lowered to  hamster's head level so he can feel and know where is the water bottle without much difficulties.

• Food supply
• Place the food dish in an open area without any obstacles so that you view your hamster without difficulties and know if it has any problem going into the food dish. If your hamster has problem even climbing into the food dish, do consider changing to a shallow food dish.

2) Sound over movement

• Create a common noise
• By creating a common noise habitually, your hamster will be able to relate that noise to you. However, avoid super loud noise as your hamster might be in shock than in comfort. I always use a squeaking whistle before placing my hand or food dish in the cage.

• Touching your hamster slowly and gently
• Yes, you still can pick up your blind hamster but make sure your hamster know that it is you. Avoid back grabbing as that is how predators in the wild hunt for hamsters. Let your hamster come to your hand before scoping it out from the cage. I prefer scoping method than tummy hold for my older hamsters as they will feel safer with a base that they can touch their feet on. 

Hope these tips helps. I had draft this article many month back but never get to type finish it until today. Cheers!

Types of bedings available for hamster

Time to settle for a serious article!
Sorry folks for my slacking and thank you for your patience on waiting for my article. Guess I need to come out with new articles over the weekend! Okay, to jump start the engine, I decide to do a "mini" topic on hamster bedding before moving on to more serious topics. I have decided to totally avoid the brands of bedding for non-commericalising purposes and just focus on the advantage and disadvantages only. Here goes:

What is a bedding?
A hamster bedding is a layer of material that you lay on your hamster's cage. Most common function of a hamster bedding is actually to absorb urine and freshen up the cage as most hamster owners only clean their hamsters and cages 1-2 times per week. Most of times, hamster owners buy hamster bedding commercially although DIY beddings are available.

• Normal Types of Bedding available on the market
• Wood Shavings/Chips
The most common bedding available on the pet stores are Wood Shaving/Chips. Wood shavings are generally softer than chips but there's quite a few drawbacks despite the affordability. Sometimes rough wood shavings/chips might give your hamster a splitter on its limbs and wood shaving/chips, by itself, doesn't absorb urine that well and give off awfully smell after 3-4days of changing cages especially with hamsters that tends to urine very often.

However, please by all means avoid the following wood bedding by all cost: Cedar/Pine. Despite the fact that both cedar and pine give off nice fragrance. They are known to give your hamsters health problem as well. This is a well known fact within the community of rat/hamster owners. In case, you need more information, I also added a link here that touches on the toxicity of these 2 wood bedding.

• Straw and/or Hay
Another affordable bedding will be straw/hay bedding. Both straw/hay bedding can be used for hamster bedding but there's a difference between both of them. Hay are generally grasses that are cut while it is still alive and straw is a byproduct. Hay can be used as a feeding material on its own as it still maintain the nutritious value while straw cannot be used as a feeding material. As hay can be served as a fresh food/bedding by itself, interaction with urine from hamsters will make it stink very fast.
• Corn Cob Bedding or similar
One of the most affordable bedding but with tons of disadvantages. Corn cob doesn't not do absorb urine and smell that well but is relatively one of the cheapest bedding available in the pet store. Generally corn cob bedding needs to be change more frequently as compare the the rest as corn cob bedding will turn mouldy pretty fast upon contact with moisture.
• Cat Litter or pelleted bedding
This is actually one of my favourite bedding due to the fact that pellated bedding can absord urine pretty well. There are quite a few pellets beddings out on the market with round or flat bedding being the 2 most common designs. However, pelleted bedding is well-known for its cost. 1 small bag of pelleted bedding is almost equivalent to a medium/large bag of wood shaving bedding depending on bands.
• Paper Pulp Bedding
Another favourite hamster bedding of mine! This paper pulp bedding is generally much softer/lighter than pelleted bedding and can control urine equally well. Paper pulp comes in large variety of colours andand turn yellowish in colour when in contact with urine. Personally I only like white bedding as I'm not sure if the colourful bedding available at the pet store are dye safe for hamster. However, its cost is equally matching to that of pelleted bedding or even higher, depending on the brands available.
• Wire Mash
Some of the cages have wire mash that comes with it. This really save quite a substantial amount of money for the bedding and hamster's urine and droppings are drop below leaving the hamster cleaner than normal bedding. However, one major drawback of wire mash is that your hamster have to stand/walk/sleep on the wire mash over a prolong period of time.
• DIY Bedding
•  Newspapers/Magazines
For hamster owners on shoes string budget, this is the cheapest DIY material available. However, most hamster website/owners/forums won't recommend this alternative due to the ink printing on the papers and hamsters might eat/chew on the newspapers.
Personally used it without much of an issue with my hamsters when I first started out rearing hamsters but there are 2 main drawbacks from my experience. 
Firstly, newspaper and magazines do not have good urine absorbtion properties, and turns pretty fast into pulp like materials upon contact with water.
Secondly, my hamsters love to dig tons of holes in my newspapers bedding and it is really hard to find them at times. There was once I had a pretty sick hamster and it went into digging mode and I have to unearth the entire bedding just to find him.
• Shredded papers
For folks who owns papershredder - you will love this method. All you do is stand in front of paper shredder and shred any amount of white/brown papers without ink for your hamster bedding! But this process is pretty daunting especially if your shredder is lite function by nature. Another point to note will be that papers don't absorb urine that well and frequent changing of bedding is recommended.
• Nesting Material
• Cotton
Hamster owners usually will give their hamsters additional material to bulit their nest and one of the most common material will be cotton. Most of commerical cotton from Pet Store are natural cotton.

However for hamster owners who are on shoes- string budget, I recommend another alternative of buying 100% facial unbleach cotton pads from non-pet store. So far i dont have any issues from hamsters using facial cotton pads as I make sure they are 100% natural and have minimium processing.

• Papers Material
Other types of DIY materials for nesting materials includes tissue papers, facial tissue, toilet papers and even paper towels can be used as nesting material for hamsters.

I love give my hamster, Baba, 1 piece of facial tissue after another after changing the cage bedding and nesting material. Baba seems to have so much fun pulling all the tissues into his home while remaking his nest.
• Bathing Sands
• Bathing sands are which a type of sands that help hamsters to get rid of its dirt/oil by rolling over the sand. Aside that, smarter hamsters can actually pee only in bathing sands while keeping the rest of the cage clean.
• Generally, bathing sands have 2 types of fineness - Coarse sand and Fine sand. Coarse sand are usually used for littering purpose white fine sand is used for hamster rolling purpose. 
• There are some type of coarse sand that will turn into lump upon contact with urine and these type of sands are the type that work best with hamsters that tends to urine a lot.
• Aside of the fineness of the sand, there are also tons of sand that are scented with various flavors like apple and rose! Personally, I perfer non-scented sand as I use cucumber flavour deorderizer for my hamster cage. ^^

In conclusion, I generally summarise almost all the beddings that are usually used in hamster cages. Generally, most hamster owners will weigh between comfort for hamster and cost while decide which bedding to get. Hope this super long article helps in understanding the different type of bedding available and help you in making a decision on type of bedding to use for your hamsters.

Do you know how to differentiate a Male and Female Hamsters...

Do you know that you can differentiate Male and Female hamster by checking their rear?

Mature adult male hamsters are very easy to differentiate by observing a large buttocks at the rear.

However, young hamsters are usually differentiate by inverting them around and check their private areas in between their hind legs.

Generally, baby/infant female pups have a shorter distance between the 2 holes spotted at their rear while baby/infant male pups have a longer distance between the 2 holes spotted at their rear.

This is usually done through experienced eyes as non-experienced people will have problem differentiate.

Hamsters & Birth

Cheese, I wish I didn't promised this article in my blog earlier as I truly do not encourage breeding of hamsters at all. Since it is my promise, I will share my information as a nurse/grandparent/mid-wife for my hamsters.

Recalling my first breeding experience
My first breeding experience incurred as a surprise to me one day in mid 2002 when my Polar give birth to 4 pups. I was feeding Ah Boy and Polar when I realised that there's some movement in the back of their hut. Taking out the hut, I saw 4 moving red "beans" in the cotton wool and screamed in delight. Being a teens back then, I have no idea how to take care of both the mother and the pups and went on touching the pups with my bare hands. Polar went nuts and refuse to feed the pups and I was scolded by my parents for touching the pups. Furious by the neglecting Polar and scared that that pups might die, I went online and search for tons of hamster pup care information....... such was rare back then as there's no such thing as well-known forum such Yahoo Answers nor detailed Wikipedia on hamsters.

Watching pup birth for the 1st time in my life during my early adult life
To give birth, the Mother hamster need a lot of strength and support to give birth the natural way without painkiller Seriously, seeing my one of mother hamsters in labour pain and the joy of live pups born in front of me, I truly understand what does it means being a grandparent of my hamster pups.....

Sorry for the side tracking of my past memories.

And here's a few tips of how to notice a pregnant hamster:

• Pregnant hamster tends to eat a lot and sleep a lot. 
• Pregnant hamster also tend to exercise slower than usual.
• Pregnant hamster (especially first-timer mother) tends to be in super grouchy mood if you want to carry it especially via tummy hold method. They tend to bite the holder most likely if you carry them this way. (Recommend : scoop/platform method)
• Pregnant hamster will have their tummy getting bigger especially towards their pregnancy is due soon.

As such, depending on the species of the hamsters that you have - I strongly recommend you to split your Father syrian/chinese hamster but Father drawf winter/robo/pudding hamsters are well-known to be remain within the cage and help Mother hamster with her pregnancy/pup raising.

Some hamsters are known to have delay their pregnancy but usual pregnancy period is around 21 days. Most pregnancy occurs during early hours of the morning or evening because that's the period where most hamsters are active.

Things to note during milking period of the pups:

• Try moving the cage to a darker/quieter location of the house so that both Mother/pups will not be stress out.
• Avoid touching both Mother hamster and pups for the touch 2 weeks. 
• Pups will open their eyes around their 10th day.
• Give nutritional food to Mother hamster to ensure she have enough milk to feed her pups especially if her litter is big. 
• Food to consider : Hard boil eggs, milk, cheese, butter, sunflower seeds. 
• Only clean the toilet section of the cage and leave the rest of the cage untouched whereas possible
• Most pups will only wean (milk-free) from 14-21 days. 
• I strongly recommend only separate from Mother hamster after the pups have fully gone to solid food in order to have healthy pups. I realised that most pups sold at pet stores/ online are not properly wean and hence hand feeding is still required when needed. Improper weaning will result in unhealthy hamster.
• Only touch pups who have wean properly. However should one require to take the pups out due to some emergencies, use a spoon or something similar to gently scoop out the pups.
• The moment if there's any fighting between Father hamster and almost weaned pups, separation of Father hamster is required so that the pups will be safe as Father hamster have the tendency to kill young male pups and rape young female pups to ensure that he is the King of the community.

For pups abandoning by Mother hamster: please refer to this article : Abandoned hamsters pups helpline

Remarks : I will try to touch on a sensitive topic on breeding before my trip to Japan by end of the Mar.

Mother Hamster Abandoning Hamsters Pups! Helpline!

Chances of mother hamsters abandoning pups are normal due to a few facts such as:

• Mother hamster is too weak by nature so she cannot raise her pups by herself.
• Mother hamster is in distress / uncomfortable with the surrounding as in too much noise/movement around the cage.
• Someone/some other animals have rub their scents onto the pups. Hence mother hamster cannot recognise the pups as her own.
• Pups are deemed too weak to raise. Hence it is better for the mother hamster to give up on the pups and nurse herself health back.

Hence I recommend the following steps hoping to salvage the situation.

• Feed the Mother hamster with tons of calcium and nutritional food like cheese, butter, milk and sunflower seeds (PLEASE NOTE in MODERATION.)
• Try moving the cage to a quieter location and partial cover the cage with a cloth to avoid sun rays/lightings.
• When feeding Mother hamster, avoid touching the pups for the 1st 2weeks as they are not wean (milk-free) from their Mother as such. If one really requires to touch the pups, use a plastic spoon and scoop the pups out gently.

If all situation fails, then one can consider the following options:

• Find a adoptive Mother hamsters for the abandon pups. Chances for this to work is low unless the adopting Mother is very gentle temper in nature and can take care of pups other than her own. (Not recommend for Syrian Hamsters as Syrian Hamsters are super territorial by nature)
• Be a nurse yourself. Usually for me, I can safely say that pups that are 2 weeks old have good chances to survive on their own as they are almost going to be wean free from their Mother hamster.
• As such, do the following things : check if their eyes are open.
• If yes, try feeding them solid food and see the response of the pups. If they can chew the solid food, they are safe. Lower the water bottle to their neck level so that they can drink the water bottle.
• If not, prepare a dropper (those used for eye drops and can be purchased from pharmacy easily). Take small dosage of milk ie few drops - (room temperature milk or lukewarm milk) and gently drop 1 drop by 1 drop by the pup's mouth. It won't be easy and requires tons of patience as the pups might be scared of foreign objects near them.

Hope that you may never read this article as reference as this means that your Mother hamster had just abandon her pups.

Surviving Hamsters Community (for NEW and Old Hamsters alike)

This is a very tough topic to cover itself but I will try to cover as much details as possible. Although I do encourage hamsters to be kept to pairs (other than Syrian), I do not encourage breeding of hamsters unless one understand the responsibilities of breeding and able to take care of all the hamsters.

Important : If your existing hamster/s is/are very territorial by nature, it will best that your new hamster should kept separate to prevent injuries/fights among themselves. Other than territorial hamsters, I also do not recommend different species of hamster to be placed in the same cage at all times.

On the general rules of thumb, Syrian should be kept alone. Communities hamster like Russians hamsters and Roborovski hamsters can be kept within their own communities (however, subjected to the temperament of each individual hamster). It will be best to introduce hamsters to each other when they are young as young pups can are earlier to adapt having additional companionship.

Another important point to take note is emotion well being of both existing and new hamsters. New hamster should be left ideally alone if there's sufficient cages available as this will allows them to adjust slowly to the environment. As for the existing hamster/s, it is best to reinsurance that they are still part of the family by showing them care and love (and letting them know that they are still being cared for although there are new additional to the family).

Step 1 (Before hamster-hamster interaction)
Before letting any of your hamsters interaction, it will be useful to bath (either by sand bath/powder bath/water bath of the same scent) all the hamsters to remove all hamster smells among themselves. Other than bathing all the hamsters, the cage (advisable to be a open style cage) that is going to be used for interaction should be washed and replace with new bedding as well.

Step 2 (Initial Interaction)
Place the hamster (preferring to be the younger or the timider of the hamsters) in the interaction cage for a while before introducing another hamster. Observe how both the hamsters interact. If fighting or bleeding occurs, separate them instantly with a fishnet or a rice bowl(Alternative : Wear Gloves). You may consider re-introduce your hamsters at a later time.

Possible reason of fights : Hamsters smell strangers/dangers within their territories.

Step 3 (Permanent Interaction)
When both hamsters are comfortable with each other for more than 15mins, then it is time to settle the pairs in!

Next try letting the pair living with each other for the next few days and continue to observe their behavior. If loud squeaking occurs without fighting/bleeding, don't worry. This is their way of communicating with each other when they are having fun with each other.

However, if loud squeaking occurs along with fighting and bleeding, PLEASE separately them without further delays.
(i) Same Gender  Interaction
Seriously, until date, i had not successfully introducing same gender interaction for hamsters older than 6 months. Therefore, my best advise is to get the same batch of siblings hamsters together at the same time or alternatively introduce the hamsters to each other early in their lives.

(ii) Different Gender  Interaction
Generally male-female interaction should be less problematic than same gender hamster.
However, this section brings about breeding of hamsters along with the moral issues involved. Please understand that while keeping a pair of hamster is fun, breeding isn't. There are various issues of breeding such as understanding the pregnant hamster and temperament, taking care of the mother hamster and the newborns and who will be taking care of the pups when they grow up.

Kids and Hamsters - Should I let any kids play with my hamsters???

This is a very tough questions to answer for most of the parents and hamsters owners alike. This blog entry generally covers preschool kids that have never interacting with hamsters or other types of pets before.

Important : If your hamster is very aggressive and non human friendly, it will best that children do not touch your hamster. This will prevent your hamster from being agitated nor the kids to be bitten.

Other than aggressive hamsters, I also do not recommend roboskivii hamster as playmates as they are not suitable for people who have no or minimium hamster experience.

On the usual tone, my house only allow kids to play with tame and human friendly hamsters.

Another important point to take note is always supervise kid-hamster interaction at all times so that neither parties will be hurt in the process.

Step 1 (Before hamster interaction)
Before letting any kids play with your hamster, it will be useful to inform them in advance the temperament of your hamster. Educate the kids that they are dealing with a living animal so they have to handle your hamster with gentle care at all times.

Step 2 (Intial Interaction)
As you lift the hamster in your hands, ask the kid to slowly and gently touch your hamster by the head until both hamster and kid is comfortable with each other.

Step 3 (Feeding Interaction)
Next try asking the kid to hold the sunflower seed with his/her fingers and let the hamster eat the seed. Alternatively, you can ask the kid to cupped the hands with sunflowers and let the hamster explore the kid's hand.

Step 4 (Before passing hamster over)
When you want to let the kid hold the hamster 1st time round, the best method will be asking the child to sit on a sofa or soft bench or carpeted floor before passing your hamster over. This is prevent nasty fall/drop of your hamster.

Step 5 (Holding interaction)
Ask the kid to cup his/her hands gently around your hamster so that your hamsters will not be at a discomfort and always educate them that they are dealing with living animal and treat your hamster with respect.
Show some basic trick like "Walk the hamster" or "Standing Hamster".
Avoid teaching nape holding or tummy holding tactics to the child as this will require some holding practise and the child's hand might be too small to properly hold your hamster.

Step 6 (Letting the kid to play with your hamster)
Try setting up an viewable area for your hamster to run and play with the child if both parties seems to be at ease with each other.

The child by now should be able to handle your hamster. :)

Upcoming article : Kids' responsbility toward hamsters as owners.

IMPORTANT : Introducing new hamster to the house...especially for New hamster owner

You have bought little hammie home from pet shelter/pet shop/pet breeder, it is time to let your hamster get familiar with its environment.

Before you go on with this blog post, there are 4 pointers to take note of :
1) Do you have pets other than hamsters in the house?
If you do, refer to my upcoming article on "Hamsters interacting with other Pets"

2) Do you have kids in your house? How old are they?
Will they be old enough to interact with your new hammie?
If you do, refer to my article on "Kids and Hamsters - Should I let my kids play with hamsters???"

3) Do you have other hamsters in your house? Are they of the same species?
Are they of the same gender?
If you do, refer to my article on "Surviving Hamsters Community"

4) Do you intend to breed hamsters?
If you do, refer to my upcoming article on "Hamsters & Birth"

As an experienced hamster owner since 2000, my best advise for any excited owners is :
CALM DOWN!!!

The little one is highly likely to be very afraid of its new surrounding area. So the following steps are to calm and welcome your new hammie to its new home.

Step 1 (Location of hamster cage)
Before deciding where to place your hamster cage upon reaching home, there are a few factors that you should consider : Lighting, heat and noise level of the house. Newly homed hamsters are very timid in nature and any sudden exposure to above factors will scare them, thus making them harder to be human friendly. Best advise to new hamster owners is to leave your hamster to explore and get familiarized its new cage in a quiet and dim lighted for first few days.

Step 2 (Approaching your hamster)
Before you approach your hamster, it will be in your hamster's best interest to call it out softly. Depending on circumstances, you may either call your hamster by its name or use a common sound that your hamster might recognize you and your hands with. AVOID banging or knocking your hamster cage at all time as such behavior will only make your hamster be more afraid of you!!!

Step 3 (Bonding with your hamster)
One common mistake that most new hamster owners do is to grab their hammie the moment they reach home. Won't you be terrified if you are walking on the streets and a stranger suddenly grabs you by your waist? Same theory applies to all newly homed hamsters as well.
The following approach that I recommends is a longer route to create bonding between you and your hamster. Althrough this approach might be time consuming, it allows your hamster to have complete trust in you in the near future.

Step 3.1 (1st week)
Before any interaction with your hamster, try putting your hands near your hamster wherever you can. Slowly over the course of a week, shorten the distance between your hand and your hamster. This will let your hamster knows that you are a friend.

Step 3.2 (2nd week)
Try feeding your hamster with treats with your fingers first by dangling it in the air, let your hamster approach you and accustom your fingers. Alternatively, you can fill your palms with some food and let it approach you. One advice to zest hamster owner: Never ever chase after your hamster to feed it!

Step 3.3 (3nd week)
Try gentle stroking your hamsters while it is eating or sleeping. If your hamster shows any signs of unease (i.e. running away, squeaking or baring teeth), just put your hand away and do it some other time.
One good advice to new hamster owner : Always approach your hamster head on and never from the back.
Only predators from the wild catch hamsters from the back.

Step 3.4 (4th week)
By now, if your hamster show no signs of resist, congratation to you! Your hamsters trust you and allows you to touch and play with it.

Have a nice hamster bonding time!