hamster or a gerbil? what shoudl i get for dd

[ScareyBitchFeast]

hamster seem to be more popular but arent they nocturnal?
are gerbils mroe expensive or something.
whats best for a 9 year old dd?

i have had both and i would say a hamster - gerbils are harder to catch if they escape, they are very fast and mine kept biting, hamsters are noctural but they do come out in the early evening, your son will be at school during the day as well

Gerbil vote here.

I found hamsters smelly, more temperamental & came out around 7 to run round their wheel most of the night keeping us all awake. They do look cute but definitely not as child friendly as gerbils.

well - thats 50/50

thanks

Sorry to complicate things but I would say get a guinea pig. Even better, get two. They live outdoors, are easy to handle and are really sweet little things.
If you do, wait 'til bonfire night has been and gone. Firewaorks may be too much for baby pigs!

pn order of suitability (imo)

Guinea pig
Rat
Gerbil
Hamster
Rabbit

Please bear in mind that all but the hamster must be kept in single sex pairs or groups.

Rats are brilliant - funny, clever & affectionate. Also not smelly at all.

And soooooooooooooooo cute.

I mean, you haven't lived until you've seen a rat eat a raw egg .

My 11yr old DS is pestering me to post on his behalf

He reckons hamsters rock???? He has one called Cena (after the wrestler John Cena - I know dont ask)

He says 'Cena is all cream coloured and is very, very tame. It took me a few weeks to tame him but now he is brilliant. He does like to sleep until 7pm but I wake him up when I come in from school . Sometimes his cage is very smelly but my mum is great at cleaning it out [swipe around the earhole emoticon] Hamsters are wonderful but not as great as the dog that I would really love!!'

There you are, the opinions of Tom dictated to mum!!

Get a rat - they are lovely, less smelly, less bity and mad than gerbils, and awake in the evening.

wwtwta, why did you put rabbits bottom of your list?

We had a hamster when I was little and it was sooooooooo annoying running round its wheel making a massive amount of noise the whole night. Seriously pointless pets. We also had 2 guinea pigs for a while that were lovely, but a fox ate them after a while. I had a gerbil once too, but it was a bit of a non-event really. Apparently you can house train a rabbit, and they can be quite sociable.

The only really pets are dogs and cats though. The others don't really give a monkey's.

I used to work in a pet shop when I was young and always thought hamsters not best pet for kids as asleep allday and can be quite bad for biting. Gerbils never seemed to bite as much but are hard to handle. I would agree with some of other posts - rats and guinea pigs are better.

Gerbil. Hamsters are evil. Rats make better pets though, we had a pair that would come when you called them.

i love guinea pigs best but the hutches are expensive, and they wouldhave to be outdoors, plus the rest of my dc would be jealous

maybe we will get rats then. ratatouille and all that

thanks so much for all your words,

Nighbynight Rabbits can be really hard for children to handle, their back legs are so powerful, and when they kick, they scratch, the less they are handled the harder it becomes.

Hence all over the county you have pissed off rabbits that sit in cages all day, because nobody dares get them out of the cage because thay are 'vicious'.

Go to any animal re-homing center and they will always have loads of rabbits for exactly that reason.

Handled and excercised correctly they make lovely pets, but they are for older children only imo. (Unless of course a parent is a staunch rabbit lover and will spend lots of time with them too).

And of course there will be exceptions and I appologise if you have the worlds softest bunny.

thanks for the tip, will take this into consideration.