hellowombat

I didn't get my first hamster until age 20, and I was really flabbergasted after getting him and researching basic hamster care that there just wasn't a lot of good reliable information out there -- and worse, that the products marketed toward hamsters and the information taught to pet store employees and even animal shelters about proper hamster care was severely lacking.

I loved him (his name was Hamlet) and I was frustrated that it was so hard to provide for him the way that I felt he deserved, and he wound up passing away due to an illness that was almost certainly the result of poor breeding practices which really solidified for me the necessity of rescue over supporting pet stores. A few years later my partner and I moved to the city and I felt strongly that a good resource for hamsters should exist here.

Hamlet: http://imgur.com/OGBuH3Z I love you and miss you little guy.

INTENSELY noisy. We have a room in our home that is basically our hamster room, and during their "awake" period -- usually evening through to early morning -- it is a cacophony. If their room was near our bedroom we'd never sleep.

I choose names arbitrarily mostly, sometimes based on their personality. I have a habit of often naming hamsters after food for whatever reason. We've had Waffle, Udon, Soba...

Hamster abuse seems to be very prevalent everywhere unfortunately, but I think this is mainly due to lack of education. It is no better here than anywhere else. Hamsters are routinely kept on bedding that is potentially hazardous, in wildly small cages, given exercise wheels (if they are lucky to have one at all) that are so small they cause spinal cord deformation, etc.

8" is the accepted minimum, but some require larger. If your hamster arches its back when running you need a larger wheel. They should be able to keep their back straight while exercising.

Sometimes, yes. When someone brings in a hamster with a tumor bigger than its head and I'm told that if they couldn't drop it off to me they were going to feed it to their dog and the only reasonable and humane action I can take is to euthanize the little guy, then yes. I hate it. Intensely. But I'm glad I can do it.