Hampster. ARGHH!

[avenanap]

I thought it would be a nice idea to get ds a pet so that he could care about something other than me or him. The bloody thing sleeps all day and spends my lovely quiet evening just going round and round and round and round in it's bloody wheel and it's driving me bloody MAD! Are they all like this or is mine just bonkers?

Hamsters are nocturnal creatures. Didn't they tell you at the pet shop?

no it is not bonkers it is nocturnal

No! I don't mind that but this is all it does. It just goes round and round and round in the bloody wheel. It must be loosing so much weight. Ohh, it's started climbing up the cage now, no, back to the bloody wheel.

They run round and round in a squeeky wheel all night, scuffle around in their bedding chucking it out of the cage and all sorts of annoying things. I hate them sorry hamster lovers!!

ooh just remembered ours used to climb the bars and gnaw the bars for ages, and the caring for a pet idea worked not a jot!

Sh*t. It must be a nice life! I should have got a rabbit instead . Would it be mean if I took the wheel out of the cage for an hour?

That's why we got chinchillas when we were looking for pets about 11 yrs ago - they are semi nocturnal which seems to mean that they sleep much of the day and the night! Have a large wheel for them too, but currently not connected as they managed to run it so much they broke the side of the cage...

Do you have an alternative room that the hamster could be in, even if its only for the evening (eg move into the kitchen, bathroom or somewhere and then move back to current location just before you go to bed)

Get one of those plastic balls and watch it bumping into the furniture, good exercise less bloody noisy and midly entertaining.

Dump it somewhere and tell the kids it ran away.

Or you could casserole it....

I'm going to put the bloody thing outside in a minute! Do you recon it's anorexic and binging on exercise?

I have been warned off the plastic balls. Do they break? He's really fast. Hard to find aswell!

"mildly entertaining" even.

Haaa, did you do this madamez?

Mine never broke (the ball that is) and it used to hurtle down the passage and bang into the front door, it was obsessed with the front door, definitely had an escape route planned.

Can you imagine one of those about 1" across with a chinchilla in - they can even chase cats at that size! Fantastic entertainment!

PMSL! If the bloomin thing ever broke out in my house I'd never be able to find it again . I really wanted a rabbit!

Sorry, that should have been 1' across

God it would be like Tom and Jerry (if you see what I mean!)

don't worry they only live for two years

put it in the hallway

We used to have a gymnast hamster - it would cross the bars at the top of the cage hand-over-hand - fantastic!

(Sadly it crashed down once too often and died. Ahhhh. )

squeek squeek squeek scrabble scrabble scrabble gnaw gnaw gnaw what's the bloody point of them?

Haa, my neighbour was trying to show ds how to hold it on Saturday and dropped it! So funny! It ran off and hid under the sofa. The things you do for your kids. This must be above and beyond.

My sister dropped ours from quite a height when we first got it home, it was dd's birthday party all the kids started screaming as it hurtled round the living room in a panic. Sort of set the tone for life with a hamster really!

The DP and I got a winter white russian dwarf hamster as sort of a practice child. It's up in the early morning and late evening, so he's pretty active when we're not at work. We mostly stand over the cage and coo at his utter cuteness (realising of course that this is nothing like parenting).

Don't take the wheel out! Hamster WILL be bonkers then!

A better pet for a kid would be a rat. They are smarter and like to interact with people more. My brother had two different ones as a kid and they were lovely.

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