MUNCH

[wildlifewarrior]

was looking through a few pics and found these. This is Munch our chinese dawf hamster that we had. He died about 2 months ago at the grand age of 7 and half years old. these are expected to live about 3 years so he did pretty well. just thought i wud share some pics of him.

[Pussygalore]

that is a really good age we had a hammy called pip, just the normal sandy one she developed a stomach tumour and had to be put down at 2yrs we were really upset (hubby and I ) and said we wouldn't have anymore shortlived animals, she sat on the vets table washing her face on the day she died, she'd suffered a broken front leg earlier at the petshop holiday quarteres where she stayed and they left her, unable to move for nearly 2 weeks untill we came back, found her rushed her to the vets, her leg healed but she always limped afterwards and both I and the vet made sure that place never looked after anyone elses pets again, she must have been in agony and had to drag herself out to reach her water,food and go to the toilet, i had nightmares about that for ages.

[wildlifewarrior]

sorry about that, i don't need to ask have u ntaken anyhting to the shop since. must have been really bad for the hamster to have been liekt hat for such a time.

we found munch dying one day and even when his breathing was slow and his back legs were limp, he still managed to dibble down one of his treats before hand

[ghone]

he looks gorgeous ! on the subject of old age we had a gerbil who lived for nearly seven years we kept her in a massive glass tank filled with peat and sand and she used to make networks of tunnels under the surface she was a lovely old lady and got really fat and slow toward the last 6 months of her life thanks for posting the pic it reminded me of Whitey <she was an albino!!>

[ghone]

sorry pg it takes me ages to type in a post so didnt read your sad post...i thought mine would be the next one up after the pic of munch sorry to hear your sad story

[linda]

munch looks a handsome chap he lived a good long time in your care

[Pussygalore]

the vet said someone must have dropped pip to have damaged her and probably didn't like to own up so they assumed everything was ok but why they didn't notice that noone had seen her or checked that she was ok was beyond me, yours living such a long time has made me think about having another one, but it wasn't very nice seeing the tumour taking over her little body, I did a lot of research on hammys when we had her and found amoung other things that a wild european hammy was found to have a store containing over 10lbs of food thats a life time of collecting and that they can travel up to 8 miles in a night, also they take live food insects and even small frogs we put a small locust in her cage once and she became like a lion and hunted it down and ate every bit, amazing little creatures.

[wildlifewarrior]

thanks linda and ghone!

Pussygalore- from my experince of keeping rodents i think the dwaf hamsers are the best, they stress out less and are normally more friendly. most of my rodents can be fed live insects but don't as it means they need to be wormed more often and plus if u have them in a wire cage then they alwasy get out lol. altho i do think having insects in there diet is good, i use the solid insect feed for wild birds, got meal worms and lots of bugs in them.

[Pussygalore]

I was just interested in how they live in the wild, we always had a unfortunate small animal as children who used to get commercial food and that was it now the knowlege is out there if we choose to look and these little animals have as varied a life style and any, so pip used to get all her wild flowers grasses weeds etc, seeds veggies plus the odd wiggly thing that came from the reptile shop, she used to sit by the door waiting to come out and as soon as the door was open she'd come straight out onto your hand we never caught her always let her come to us, she was a real pleasure to have.

[Lyn]

Very cute and great that he lived so long.