Just a random thought, stop buying your kids hamsters. They are weirdly fragile, and die if they are feeling spiteful that day. They don’t love being held (but can be chill!), and cleaning their enclosure is gross and nonstop. They are cute, and I do enjoy them when they come into my life (friends/partners have them in occasion).
Instead, and I am dead ass here, get a tarantula (new world). They are the stupidestly simple thing I have ever kept, feed them when you remember to, clean their cage at some point, don’t handle them. They live for 5-20years (males live very short lives, females live creepily long) and are absolutely fascinating tank pets. Like fish, with 1/100th the work and expense. Oh also baby spiders are basically free, cus while hamster have large broods they ain’t got shit on yet old spider bros.
The biggest downside is that they are literally a spider and that freaks people out, but it freaks them out even more when I tell them unlike the probably tens of other spiders in the house I know exactly where mine are at all times.
Hamsters are specialty pets which require specialty care and knowledge and I wish to God that more people understood this.
Spiders can absolutely become addictive though! I got my first pet jumping spider a couple years ago. I fell down the rabbit hole inadvertently pulling my lifelong arachnophobe partner with me. Our collection now inlcludes hundreds of jumpers, about 60 tarantulas, and a handful of other true spiders. Spiders fuggin rock.
Totally! If you have one spider, it’s basically the same effort to care for like 5+ more, and even more than that isn’t much additional effort just becomes space.
Even feeding them is like $3/mo and that’s with buying feeders at big box store.
And the absolute best part about spider? Zero chance of dumping tens of gallons of water on the floor, or chewing up something valuable, or peeing on a pile of laundry. I guess you could get bitten but for the vast majority of tarantulas your have to stick your hand in front of their face and wiggle your fingers, and even then the majority would freak the fuck out and bolt for their safe place.
Spiders are really the best low/no effort pet.
Have you tried a pet rock?
Jumping spiders make good low maintenance pets as well. They are intelligent, cute, and typically smaller than a tarantula.
My mom, an arachnophobe, had a pet jumping spider who lived on her desk at work.
I have had a couple of these. They only live 1-2 years but they are like tiny dogs!
They are weirdly fragile
Meanwhile, my childhood hamster would escape even with books holding the cage door down and once wandered all the way across the house to find us while we were watching TV.
Just make sure to put enrichment in their cases and make sure the case is big enough.
Some species, like rodents who reproduce stupidly fast, will eat their own young when under stress to recoup lost nutrients because they can’t easily take their brood on the road to a safer location. It’s easier to just start over with a new batch.
“This baby is easier to move as my own fat ass.”
-Hamsters
I had a collegue who would always tell children running in front of cars: “You’re faster reproduced than repaired.”
I’ve never seen a hamster grow to old age. They always die in some horrible way first. Get your kids a hamster! It’s not so much a pet as it is a $25 life lesson on the fragility of mortality.
I (and my siblings) had a total of 6 hamsters. 4 died of old age, 1 suddenly bled out overnight, and 1 died pretty young, but nothing was obviously wrong, so I dunno.
My neighbors had more than a dozen rodents (including 5 guinea pigs). They all died horrifically, including 4 that were killed by mouse traps. Because of course you should have mouse traps, and also keep small rodents that you allow to escape constantly. As an adult, I think the parents were seriously negligent in teaching their children, and then also negligent in buying more rodents for the grinder after the first two or three met horrible fates.
We’ve got two guinea pigs, and in my opinion, they aren’t that hard to keep alive.
My daughter’s guinea pig just died, but he was an older fellow. He went with her to college and got her all the way through to a few months past graduation.
As George Carlin said, “You’re supposed to know it in the pet shop. It’s going to end badly. You’re purchasing a small tragedy.”
grief is the debt we take on by loving something
there will always be a tragedy at the end
First rule of rodent fight club is you don’t talk about rodent fight club.
I’ve heard that hamsters will play dead so effectively, that they will convince their owners that they actually are dead.
So, assuming that’s true, some hamsters die horribly in a small box underground.
Since we are on the hamster death topics,
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My first one’s cage was left in the yard by my dad. In summer. I don’t even need to tell you how this ended.
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We got a second one, went to grandma’s house for like 2 days and when we were back he got a parasite on his stomach. The treatement didn’t work. :(
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I had seen a Lemming die of old age, right before my eyes.
It never got smarter than trying to dig deeper holes.
On the plus side you now have a fantastic metaphor to whip out when the conversation steers to term limits in government.
Sorry about your lemming bro :(
Apparently when a captive hamster does it it’s usually caused by a nutrient deficiency. There was some research like a decade ago on how corn based diets didn’t offer enough B3 and would create nearly 100% cannibalism rates, with similar problems in diets lacking in protein.
So if you’ve ever had a mad cannibal hamster mom don’t worry, it was YOUR fault!
What food do they need added to their diet?
Insects are good, for example something like dried mealworms is an easy way to add protein that’s pretty natural to them. These days good quality hamsterfoods usually have enough protein already, but you should always check the protein, fiber and fat percentages just to be sure (and the ingredients as well, the foods shouldn’t have colorants at least). The good numbers are around 20% protein and 10% fiber, in fat there’s bigger variance depending on the age and weight etc. but it shouldn’t be over 15%. I haven’t checked what the latest research says though, these numbers and recommendations for diets can change over time
baby mice
technically better than having to deal with hamster babies…
how come b3 deficiecy leads them to want to eat other hamsters?
Hard to say exactly but it causes dementia and increased aggression in humans as well, it’s simply necessary for proper brain function. Brains need glucose to function and B3 is used in several vital functions related to both energy production and neural health.
It could also just be an instinctual trigger in hamsters that makes them think they’re starving and tbf they kind of are.
What we can say is fixing the deficiencies almost entirely eliminated the cannibalism.
Sometimes the babies eat the mom too. Yes I speak from… I guess second-hand experience. First-hand would imply I was a matricidal cannibal hamster.
That is way more impressive. Any idiot can eat a baby.
Who would you rather fight: one mumma sized hamster or 5 baby sized hamsters?
Depends on the species of the mumma / baby used to size the hamsters.
Amoeba: I’m taking the 5 babies. It’ll be harder but I still like my chances.
Oak Tree: I think my only chance is to take the babies, Though I’d be tempted to choose momma just to marvel at such a creature.
Elephant: No good options here, in a fair fight I’d lose either match. I think my only shot is to choose the momma hamster and try to win through trickery.
Hummingbird: I would lose via forfeit. They’re too cute I can’t do it.
Hummingbirds I get, but you’re telling me scientists finally figured out how to get elephants to bone hamsters?
I’m going to have to go with Ditka.
Tarrare, is that you?
wow, TIL. Poor guy.
That whole wikipedia page reads like a tall tale.
“No fork was found.”
But can any baby eat an idiot?
I would love to find out but the man keeps denying my grant applications.
Mashed carrots are about as dumb as they come, so yes.
No way. Babies can’t even have fucking honey, my money is on the idiot.
Counterpoint: babies will chomp anything within an inch of their faces. Given enough time the idiot might just get gummed to death
Great band name.
You can use the calories to do anything, even make more babies!
My son is almost 30. Is it too late?
—Saturn
Absolutely not honestly he might be thinking the same about you. Strike before struck upon
That’s just extra calories
No. Harvest his organs /s
Mama hamster ain’t letting no predators have all those nutrients.
Depriving the enemy of food so they are too weak to fight is a good tactic.
Hamsters out there reading Sun Tzu?
It’s funny how The Art of War is just a senior NCO (Sun Tzu) telling a bunch of idiot hereditary officers how to not lose wars with extremely basic advice because he’d seen what had happened if they didn’t have that
some of that basic advice still boggles the minds of leaders today
“always leave a way for your enemy to escape, a hopeless enemy fights to the death”
oh what was that? grind all the money out of everyone so they feel hopeless and feel like there’s no way out? yeah great idea let’s do that - apparently every profit centred institution
It’s important to cut off supply lines, true.
What a grand epiphany, hamsters are Russia in the winter.
Okay I never realized you can put @ in a username for some reason??
Is the hamster republican?
They just forgot the cheek pouch isn’t meant for baby, but i wouldn’t blame them, you’re not you when you’re panicking.
if the baby is gonna die either way, then you might as well get that valuable protein back
Hamsters are cannibals.
It’s weird, I know, because they’re so cute. They are though,
I listened to a lecture recently on the devouring mother archetype.
Do tell.
(If you don’t mind typing up a comment lol)
It’s basically just the smothering mother. Living her dream through her children, overprotective, sheltering, etc.
