To hamster or not to hamster, that is the question

[expatinscotland]

K, so dd1's been begging for a hamster.

And DH and I quite like hamsters so wouldn't mind keeping one.

Finally moving to a place where there's room for one.

But we have a very dominant 7-year-old black and white female cat who likes to exercise her hunting skills.

Is there a workround?

Will there never be a hamster, 'spinning round and round on a wheel', as DD1 says in our future?

Gerbils are better as they are diurnal (sp?). Hamsters do the wheel spinning by night - not great if it is sharing a dc's bedroom.

My cousin once had a very sweet rat. But have never heard a good word for hamsters.

Whatever, we had the cat problem and the only way round it is to keep the cage or whatever on a high shelf, in a room where you can keep the door reliably shut. My cousin used to exercise her rat in the bathroom!

Strangely I was just thinking about hamsters as pets tonight as I read the Kipper book about a hamster.

DD had one yrs ago and I vowed I'd never get one again as the feckers are always asleep when you want to play with them.

Not sure about the cat thing though,might be fun to watch

NO, no rats.

I hate them.

They are vile.

Hamster will not be sleeping in DDs' bedrooms and will be high up.

Ooooo, we do so love a hamster.

hamsters sleep all day. Squeaking wheel all night. Guinea pigs are nice.

Wild ones are vile, I agree. We had them once in our shed (not here thankfully) and a very odd man came round and dealt with them. Not pleasant.

I just think hamsters aren't around much in the daytime, all you see is a sleeping ball of puff.

I had a hamster when I was a child, poor thing it spend the time sleeping or being poked by me (to wake him up, obviously).

He took revenge at the night when I was trying to sleep! The noise that wheel made when he was in it!

Hamsters are crap!

Gerbils rule!

oh god dd1 has been promised a hamster for her 7th birthday and i'm dreading it. I loathe all rodents and basically feel they should be put down.

We had the prettiest gerbil, grey with pink eyes. Very cute.

Gerbils are defo better EXCEPT that they eat everything and spend their entire time trying to escape. Nightmare. get a guinnea pig (sp?)

I had an evil gerbil. I got him for my birthday when I was 11 after begging my parents.

He was horrible.

He bit the hell out of all of us, hard enough to draw blood and chewed his plastic cage.

He lived to escape.

He traumatised me and put me off gerbils for life .

I must admit it does get a bit distressing when you see them either trying to tunnel out or chew their way out, even with psychomoggie waiting for them the other side. Would never have another animal that needs caging.

Snap, kitty!

This thing could chew anything! We had to hold him with an oven glove because he'd knaw your hand off otherwise.

Oh yes I do love a twittering Guinea Pig.
They're quite cuddly aren't they.

Get a kitten.

I had a rabbit like that, absolute nutter, I was petrified of it!

OUrs are always escaping. We had 4 gerbils. 2 got squashed and the other 2 have eaten their way out of the cage

Hmm, well, we all like guinea pigs as well. Especially their squeak.

Rabbits can be hard work.

This satanic gerbil even chewed his own wheel to bits.

Expat 'tis so true!!

Get a puppy, then you can walk around with a little bag of shit when you're out for a walk....it's great

Goldfish are my limit. I don't class a tank as a cage.

pig

sorry

Oh, ggirl. I don't like dogs. Well, they're okay. As long as they're someone else's and far away from me.

As my mother said, 'I like dogs. I just don't think I could eat a whole one.'

Hamster faces are quite cute. And how they use their paws like hands.

like this?