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Monday 18 August 2008

Hammered hamsters and dassies on Tassies



I have never actually had an inebriated rodent pet, but I thought it made a good title.

I have had a three-legged hamster though (not quite "legless" but close). She was not born with three legs. She started out with all four. Her name was Steroid. No, really. The reason for this was her manic obsession with her wheel, which let me say, squeaked like a bitch. I somehow trained myself to sleep through the squeak, which took military discipline and explains why I can sleep with no problems in my current pub-glutted neighbourhood, while G uses earplugs.

So the hamster loved her wheel more than any hamster we had (and we had many). My sister gave her to me after her "male" hamster Bart gave birth to 5 babies. The names of the other hamsters were, wait for it: Favourite, Running, Fluffy and Baby. The names speak for themselves really, I mean, Running really liked to run, and Fluffy was...fluffy.

Genius. Anyway, my hamster damaged her back foot in her evil wheel. The vet said he could AMPUTATE, but that the chances of my little hamster surviving the anaesthetic were slim. Wah. Little Steroid went in for surgery, and came out, not only living, but, the very same day she came out, she gave birth to a tank load of babies. This hamster was truly on steroids.

I am not too sure who the father of the babies was, obviously one of her horny brothers. But the hamster saga gets much worse, and this is all my fault. One of my sister's other hamsters died in childbirth soon after (God, this was a hamster breeding ground) and in our state of panic for the little babies I somehow thought it would be a good idea to give the new babies to Steroid to look after with her own brood. (It doesn't work like that, I know, but it was too sad to watch the little things die). I put the babies in Steroid's cage. When I next checked, Steroid and her entire brood of babies were no longer in the cage. The door was closed. What the hell? Now my panic was extreme, I had no idea what had happened to my houdini hamster and her sprogs. Sadly the other babies all died. 

A few days later, I heard a strange scrabbling in one of cupboards where I kept old school notes. Steroid and babies had made a nest in my cupboard after getting spooked by alien spawn. I never figured out how they got out of the sealed cage!

Little three-legged Steroid kept running on her wheel as if nothing was missing, stump and all.

My sweet hampie went through a lot. We won't mention the incident with the bird of prey just yet. She lived to tell that tale too.

I know you are thinking I was the worst pet owner ever. I swear my next hamster lived a peaceful and uneventful life of eating and being cute. 

It must have been all in a name.

2 comments:

megawat said...

Chika Chikadee was kicked out of his nest for being too small or perhaps for smelling funny (though I believe birds have no sense of smell).

But he was ultimately a lucky bird as he lived through more things than most stunted birdlets get to, by the end of his days.

He was picked up by my mother who is a bird lady (random birds accumulate and propser in her life) and lived through a number of challenging things such as tennis bird (not really cruel but a game used to get him back in his cage after a fly about), a BIG move and having his leg bitten off at the knee by another bird adoptee. As in Stumpy's case, the surgeon amputated and normal life continued.

Given that normal life consisted of taunting all the other bigger birds with a constant stream of verbal abuse (where his name came from phonetically) he was lucky to keep the other leg to a ripe old age when he pegg (legged) it into the next (insert preferred: "plane"/"life"/"dimension"/small patch of soil with marigolds planted on top).

Just thought I'd share. I like your blog.

po said...

Wow, a little birdlet that actually survived. My family found a few, but they never seemed to survive.

I wonder if it is karma that causes some pets to go through endless disasters and others to lie peacefully in their cages. I think it is the ones that challenge the system that have a hard time. Much like humans.