Posts tagged "hamsters"

Hamster owners, are you ready to show off your furry little friend's skills? You'll get your chance at a Petco near you on April 24, during this year's Hamster Ball Derby!

Last year's Hamster Ball Derby had more than 10,000 hamsters and other small pets racing down hamster-ball-sized tracks. Heats of four quickly separated the more fleet-footed hamsters from the slower ones, with the three fastest in each store going home with a hamster-iffic prize. (What, no wee little trophy for the hamster's mantle?)

The goal behind the Hamster Ball Derby is to give kids a fun, new way to interact with their hamsters. You may already have a hamster ball, but if you are serious about competing you might want to buy a Hamtrac, just like the ones used on race day, and get some serious practicing in before the big day. (But not too much practicing. Petco recommends no more than three 15-minute "workouts," three times a week, with rest in between.)

Our sister site, Urlesque, generously points us to the best commercial ever made in the history of commercials. OK, so we don't remember what the product is, exactly, but that's only because we are way too busy indulging in lulz at the sight of a Dixieland band comprised entirely of hamsters!

Jazz and hamsters: The gifts that keeps on giving!

Hamster Types and Habitats
Hamsters are popular pets -- cute, outgoing, and curious -- and there are several varieties, according to About.com. Syrian hamsters are the most common; they should be kept one to a cage because they generally fight if kept together. Dwarf hamsters are, as you would guess, smaller, and also more social, preferring to live in a pair or small group as long as they're introduced at a young age. Chinese hamsters are also small, but don't always get along with others. Different types of hamsters should never be housed together.

Hamster Grooming
Hamsters are self-grooming rodents -- you won't have to bathe them or clip their nails, but you should keep an eye on them. If a hamster stops grooming, it could be a sign of a serious problem, according to Dwarf Hamster Guide. You'll need to clean out their cages and change their bedding weekly.

Common Hamster Health Issues
While hamsters generally live two to three years, a healthy hamster can live a bit longer. Common hamster health issues include skin abscesses, wet tail (a contagious disease), diarrhea, and skin disease, and if you're unable to take your hamster to the vet right away, you should keep him in a warm spot and see if you can get him to eat (but don't force it), reports HowToDoThings.com. Hibernation is not uncommon, particularly if your hamster is in a cold area; warm him up and he should return to normal.

Hamster Training
Known more for their looks than their brains, hamsters aren't likely to learn a variety of tricks. The main training you'll want to focus on is teaching them to be handled without biting you or urinating, and this should be done from a very young age (although you need to give new hamsters a week or so to adjust to new surroundings, regardless of age), according to About.com. Parents are the best choice for handling a new hamster, and these sessions should be frequent, but short. Use treats (large treats, like popcorn, are easiest to give them) to earn your hamster's trust and love.

Hamsters and Children
Because they're small and agile (particularly the dwarf varieties), hamsters are not always the best option for families with small children; however, some varieties are better than others, according to Pet Web Site. But given that they don't require a great deal of room and are fairly inexpensive, many families might find hamsters to be an ideal pet.

What Hamster Owners Have to Say
Animal lover Ilona Peltz has owned two varieties of hamsters: Teddy bear hamsters (a long-haired version of the Syrian hamster) as well as dwarf hamsters. She says, "I love these little guys. They are so cute, just a chubby little ball of fluff for the palm of your hand. They have adorable little pink paws they use to hold their food -- cute! -- and wash their faces -- CUTE!" However, she's quick to point out that the training period is vital, and takes at least a couple of weeks.

There are a lot of hamster toys out there, and that's not including the new electronic hamsters or even the home-made iMac hamster cage. With so many different toys to choose from, it's nice to know which toys are the weirdest and most interesting. We've compiled a small list for you of some of the wackiest, cutest, and most practical hamster products out there.

1. The Super Pet Critter Operated Chopper, the Super Pet Dazzle Hamster Carriage, and the Habitrail Playground Dragster are all glorified hamster balls that look like vehicles for stylish outside-the-cage adventures. Now your hamster can look as bad-to-the-hamster-bone as it feels.

2. The Habitrail OVO series of hamster habitats and products offers hamster habitats that aren't just practical and simple, but that look incredibly cool too, almost as if Apple had decided to make hamster products.

3. 8 in 1 Pet Products designed their eCOTRITION Snak Shak line to do double duty. The products are meant to provide both shelter and food. That means that with eCOTRITION Snak Shak edible hamster habitats, hamsters have habitats that change daily, are nutritious, and aren't too expensive. Our favorite: the Snak Shak couch.

4. The Flying Saucer Plastic Exercise Wheel by Ware Manufacturing features an innovative design that turns the dangerous qualities of a normal wire-mesh hamster wheel on its side, letting the hamster run around what looks like a spinning plate. That means great exercise that's completely safe.

5. Small-animal treats based on Disney's "Ratatouille" may not be the most original or cleverest invention on this list, but "Ratatouille" is one of the few films with which our furry rodent friends can identify, and feeding "Ratatouille" treats to your hamster might just make it feel like it's feasting on one of the gourmet creations of its computer-animated rodent cousin.

With all these options, your hamster has a lot to look forward to this holiday season!

They're small, adorable, furry, and kid-friendly; they don't make any noise and they live in cages. How easy must it be to care for a hamster?

Yes, hamsters are one of the easier house pets to care for, but that doesn't mean they can just take care of themselves. Consult the quick checklist below to find out all you need to know about caring for hamsters.

1. Picking your pet
There are only a few breeds of hamster, but the Golden Hamster is widely considered to have the best overall temperament. Find one that's about four to eight weeks old, which is a good age to domesticate a hamster.

2. Placing the cage
Keep your hamster cage in a spot that's not drafty or overly bright. Hamsters are social, so make sure the cage is kept somewhere that will offer your hamster lots of human face time!

3. Outfitting the cage
All hamster cages should be lined with about two inches of wood shavings or torn-up newspaper; make sure whichever commercial wood shavings you choose, it says "absorbent" and "nontoxic" on the packaging. Your hamster's water bottle should be positioned low enough that the hamster can easily get to it, but high enough that it doesn't come in contact with the wood shavings, which can lead to rot. Your cage should also contain chew toys, a hamster wheel and an enclosed "bedroom" in one corner of the cage, which you can buy or make out of a small cardboard box. If you want to use an aquarium as a cage, make sure that it has a wire mesh top.

And you thought you had a shoe fetish!

Cutest roar ever.

There are some really obscure sports out there -- Curling, Bocce Ball, Jai Alai, Ice Hockey -- but today, Paw Nation has a sport so obscure that you'd think it was just made up by some bored Europeans in the eighties. Oh wait, it was!

Small animal agility competitions (for rats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, etc.) are growing in popularity every day. In fact, by the end of this decade, there may be as many as 20 people in the world who participate in them.

Small animal agility expert Marna Kazmaier, host of several animal websites, such as The Agilerat and Gerbil Agility, and owner of a kennel/ranch where she and her husband, Deron, train all sorts of animals including Siberian Huskies, spoke with Paw Nation about small animal agility.

So you've opened tabs for The New York Times, CNN, Perez Hilton, and ESPN. Your reader is overflowing with RSS feeds. You're getting thousands of e-mail updates and newsletters. But it's all missing something.

Where are the hamsters? What's going on in the hamsterverse?

You can now relax because we have found the perfect site for you. The Daily Hamster is a simple blog with a simple motto: "The kitten and puppy people have their daily fix; now it's our turn." That's right, kitten and puppy people. Step aside. Your time is over. The internet is entering the Great Hamster Era and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

The Daily Hamster is updated almost daily (hopefully more after this little article!) with cute pictures, drawings, and videos of hamsters. The creators of the site have a great sense of humor, which is something of a requirement when dealing with this often-ornery rodent. The site also has a great link section to satisfy all your other hamster needs.

Considering the similarities between hamsters and gerbils, you'd think there'd be The Daily Gerbil somewhere out there. Well, there isn't. You'd better get on that, gerbil people.

Remember the hamsterdance -- those singing, dancing hamsters filled us with joy and ineffable hamsterness? It was one thing when hamsters were on your computer, but did you ever think they'd be inside your computer?

eBay vendor ak_drummer, a person with too many old electronics and too much time, has given us a hamster cage for the new millennium, in that it's from the last millennium: a hollowed-out 1998 iMac. Now your hamster will be up-to-date on things like the Monica Lewinsky scandal and that brand-new show "Dawson's Creek"! Not to mention how computer-savvy your hamster will become: soon he'll be downloading *NSYNC songs from Napster, burning them onto a CD-ROM and playing it on his trusty Walkman.