Hamsters, Day 21!

We wanted to wait a bit more before giving them names from the musical scale (as there were seven of them), but unfortunately on the morning of 11 Sep 2009, I found one of them dead. I just got out of bed and was counting noses… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… and… 1 head! Yes, I saw a head with no body. 🙁

The poor hammy was probably bitten to death by the mother and then later cannibalized by the rest. We buried it under a tree at my block.

After the incident, we separated the hammies from their mother. They are all getting cuter and furrier as the days pass. We’re also finally able to tell their genders this week.

Look at how they sleep!

So, C D E F G A B are the notes of a C major scale. We decided to name the one that died… well… Dead.

R.I.P. poor hammy.

We have also identified and named two other hammies this week. They are Casper and Becky.

Becky’s name has a weird origin; this poor hammy had an injured right eye a week ago so I called it Buckeye. Back then, I couldn’t determine her gender yet. But once we knew she was female, we thought that’s really a bad name for a female hammy, so we renamed her Becky.

Becky the buckeye hamster.

Becky’s right eye recovered after I administered some saline eyedrops last week. Before that, she couldn’t open her injured eye. We aren’t sure what caused her swollen eye and suspect either a fight or an ant bite might have caused it. Her eye is still a little swollen but she’s really tame because we’ve been handling her since she was two weeks old.

Casper got his name pretty randomly. Wifey was trying to call it various names, including Bill and Steve (don’t ask me what she was thinking :P), but this hammy just didn’t like those names and turned away. At that time, I was looking at my laptop and saw that the Caps Lock key was lighted.

I looked at the hammy in my hand and said, “Caps… Casper?”

He popped his head out and looked at me.

Wife said, “oh he likes the name!”

So we called him Casper.

Casper squeezing out of my hand.

He has the fur of his mum, and the face of his dad. The result? Casper’s really cute!

Casper looking around.

I guess we’ll keep these two little ones. We still have four others up for adoption – two males and two females. There’s one female hammy with facial features that are very unique and makes her look like a little beauty – sharp nose, big eyes. Really sweet. I’ll try to get a photo when I can.

Emily and YuFen has expressed interest in the females and I guess I have two males left!

If you would like to adopt the rest, please leave a note!