To feel like an absolutely terrible pet owner?

[crumbleandtacos]

I got my 8 year old son a dwarf hamster 3 months ago. We have two cats and two dogs but he really had been asking for a hamster for ages. So I got him the hamster and cage and food and everything the hamster needed. The cage had like a tube thing on the outside that the hamster could crawl through and play etc and was kept in my sons bedroom on the floor.

Son is usually good at keeping his door shut however when I went in this morning the tube is split in 3 and he's not in the cage. A few times I have seen the cat watching the hamster whilst he was in tube and I've removed the cat and shut door.

I think when I was on the school run the cat must have been watching and pounced and broke the tube and got the hamster 😞 I feel absolutely awful. I feel so stupid for getting it and as if I should have known better already having the 4 other animals. I feel like it could have went to a nice home that this wouldn't have been it's fate. I keep thinking of what it must have felt like. I feel awful 😣

Don't really know what I'm asking but needed to get it out. I guess I need some reassurance that I'm not some awful person.

We found our Hamster in DD’s drawer, hamster cage sits on top, we didn’t even know he was missing, only seen him the night before, I went to put clothes away, anyway the damage he did to DD’s clothes, ruined several hoodies, I’d try find him quick.

I worked in a nursery and the hamster got out I found the little bugger in the spare clothes cupboard I almost died !

aww fingers crossed. Look for chewed patches of carpet, and holes in the floor where pipes go. Ours came out when we called it by the hole. Or leave food.

Moral of the story - do not have cats .

In all seriousness I'd love a cat but my dogs would shred it .

Very distressing thing to happen OP but Hamsters can get into tiny gaps . I thought I'd lost one forever as a kid but he'd moved into the wardrobe.

We had a hamster years ago who escaped and turned up in next door's house! He left his pie on the side in the kitchen and came back to find her eating it!

One of our hamsters escaped, I was scared stupid the dog would have found her but she had snuggled up in the scarf under the bed that smelt of my dd (her 'mum'). Also I don't like it when people say they are bad pets for kids. My dd had a hamster who was her soul mate. They adored each other and he was always playing with her in the day

When my sister and I were teens we had hamsters and one learnt to open its cage door. Very sadly one morning we found it dead on the stairs after it had escaped in the night and the cat caught it. We never got small animals after that as unfortunately nature will always take over, as you just can't make animals understand humans sensibilities and rules around other pets, it's nature for dogs to chase and cats to kill small things
You'll grieve and you'll blame yourself and you'll get over it eventually. But probably best to let your son know that he can't have lots of pets, especially small ones until he is older and the dogs snd cats have passed away.

Probably a bit late now but if there's evidence of the hamster still being around (scratching in the night) set up a bucket trap, basically a slice of apple with peanut butter on (nice and smelly) in a bucket and make a book staircase up to the lip. Hamster should fall in looking for the apple.

I kept hamsters for years (but have a murderous cat so wouldn't now as I know she wouldn't leave the cage alone) I find the best cages are the big plastic tank ones like zoozones or maxi duna's advertised for guinea pigs or rabbits and fill it with wooden toys, tubes and a big wheel. You sometimes have to attach smaller wiring on the lid if the bars are wider than 1cm (which I had to do with a zoozone). Rotastak tube ones are the worst, I had them as a kid and they were forever escaping, it was really difficult to get the hamster out and a PITA to clean.

Oh gosh! Obviously fairly common then, haven't had them in years but mine were all loving to each other!

I wouldn’t keep them in pairs as it’s not advised anymore.

My sister lost her hamster for about 10 weeks when we were little! He was living behind the washing machine and eating the dog’s food during the night (dog was fed ad lib back then). We found him as we dropped a bit of cheese on the floor accidentally and he shot out and grabbed it. He was put back in his cage but escaped frequently and was always either behind the washer or in the dog’s bed. He lived to almost 4 (he was a Syrian).

How tame is he? Can you put the cage on the floor with some of his favourite treats?

Get a bucket trap or similar set up in your sons room (with door shut so cat can't get near), hopefully if the hamster is in there it'll take the bait.

For the rest of the house pay very close attention to the cat, you'll soon spot if it is stalking something and if hamster is out of your son's room the cat is more likely to find it first. Then you can intervene and try to catch.

It is possible the cat has eaten the hamster without leaving any trace, some do but more often there would be evidence. I wouldn't give up hope yet.

If you do find the hamster then it's probably a good idea to take it to the vets unless you are 100% sure the cat didn't touch it, cat bites can cause all kinds of infection even if the bite itself isn't serious.

The cat wouldn't of eaten it though. It would be dead somewhere. It's probably on a mission.

My local pet shop hires out a hamster trap for catching escapees.

Ds saw a snake coming out from under his bed last week. Took a few seconds for it to register it was our dsnake. We hadn't noticed it was missing!!

Oh OP - I'm so sorry. This is one of those "you were stupid but only because it went wrong" situations, where, if it hadn't gone wrong then it wouldn't have been stupid at all. You're not psychic and these things do happen.

Having said that, don't give up hope. Our hamster escaped (those tubes are a real escape risk) and turned up two weeks later, five houses down the road. He'd snuck into their garage and was living in their spare rabbit hay! Who knows where hammy is now - cats don't tend to swallow rodents so, if there's no sign of a dead hamster then you may well still having a living hamster!

Is there anything you can do now in case the hamster is somewhere in the house to stop the cats getting it before you can recapture it?

No, they most definitely should not.

Sorry not the point of the thread I realise, but hamsters absolutely are not social animals. They are in fact very much solitary animals, and whilst it is sometimes possible for dwarf (or roborovski) hamsters to live in pairs, it is also extremely likely that at some point they will fight until one or both of them are gravely injured or dead.

I realise this is not the advice that Pets at Home spout, but their hamster care advice is notoriously poor. Case in point, I'm sure it was most likely Pets at Home who advised OP that the cage she bought was a suitable size, but without even seeing a photo I can tell you that it is far below the minimum recommended size for any hamster species. Hamster cages should be 80cm x 50cm at an absolute minimum, there are no cages on the market with an external tube which even come close to this.

I don't mean to sound preachy, but it drives me mad that even the minimum hamster care standards are not being met by so many owners, and I place the majority of the blame for that on places like Pets at Home who, as a well known company, people will understandably believe to be giving out accurate information. I see the sizes of the cages that they sell and I could cry, honestly.

OP I really hope your wee hamster turns up, they really are speedy wee things so I wouldn't give up hope that it has managed to evade the cats. I cannot imagine how awful you must be feeling, but it was very clearly an accident, try not to beat yourself up.

This is completely incorrect.
All hamsters are by and large solitary animals, some dwarf hamsters can live together where they cohabitate rather than need company. But in most occasions the relationship will break down and they will need to be separated.
Please do not keep hamsters in pairs or groups of ANY species.

@crumbleandtacos
You could set up a bucket trap in the room, also place some food in a small pile of flour and see if you get footprints.

For future reference, dwarf hamsters need a minimum 4,000 sqcm of floor area (c 80cm by 50cm), Syrians 5,000 sqcm (c 100 by 50cm & for a female Syrian I 2ould go 120 by 60cm at a minimum). Pet stores give the worst advice so do loads of research if you get another one.

Those cages with the tubes on the outside are not safe imo, we had a similar experience and our cat worked out how to break the tube. In our instance he just bought the hamster downstairs and dropped it on the floor surprised but unharmed.

Our hamster now has a large glass aquarium type cage, it has various levels and hammy seems very happy.

Have had no further issues with the cat getting to him!

I'm really over invested in this and want to know if the hamster is still missing after 3 days???

😂

I would point out that Pets at Home were the ones who told us we couldn’t have two dwarf hamsters. We had bought a simply enormous cage and swanned in to buy two of the little fat-bottomed rascals but they flatly (and rightly) refused to sell them to us. Just because they are a chain store it doesn’t mean that everyone working there is an idiot.

That's good to hear, but I suspect they are the exception and not the rule unfortunately. The signs on the enclosures even say that dwarf hamsters can be kept in pairs or groups. I actually overheard one guy trying to persuade someone who was buying a single dwarf hamster to buy a second one as, and I quote, they live longer in pairs!

They also only sell one hamster cage in store which just about meets the bare minimum for sizing, although the base tapers slightly so becomes marginally smaller than the 80x50cm recommended. They have one additional cage which is only available online, which is 100x50cm, literally every other hamster cage they sell is too small.

Any updates @crumbleandtacos ?