Sunday, November 7, 2010

Oh Look, More Hamsters, What a Surprise

What a big freaking surprise.
A woman came into the shelter yesterday with a box. Which instantly sets off alarm bells in my head, because if it fits in a box, it goes in the Room.
"I have hamsters." She said apologetically.
"How many?"
"A lot." She sounded sheepish.
With visions of 30 hamsters in my head, I opened the box with trepidation. Inside were 8 adorable, friendly Black Bear hamsters. Not bad!
"Males or females?" The workers asked.
"Oh...both." The lady said.
"So they're all pregnant, then." I said gloomily.
"Oh, really? Do you think so?" She sounded surprised. "I had them separated before, but I put them in the same box to bring them here."
I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something like, "How freaking dumb are you?"
So here are the genius' hamsters:
Guinness is one of the three males. I was trying to go with black-related names, so he's named after the black Irish drink. He looks like a baby in this photo, but like the rest of them he's a young adult.
Nimbus is named after the dark thunder clouds. Again not the best photo, but he's a real cutie with that little white stripe on his face.
Strider is the shyest of the boys, but all the hamsters have this going for them - they're all very social. They are very friendly, gentle and easy to handle.

Unfortunately the other five are girls, and any of them (or god forbid, all of them) could be pregnant. Syrians have a 2-wk pregnancy so we have to wait and see. For now we'll put them in foster care to keep them out of the way until we're sure.
Dottie is super cute, and one of the workers is already thinking of adopting her. For now, he's fostering her on pregnancy watch.
Ebony here is a lovely pure black girl, with super soft fur. She is very outgoing and is now at my house for fostering.
Marble is going to the same foster home as Dottie, with one of our workers. She's a lovely mottled colouring and crazy active, she was climbing the walls of her cage all afternoon.
Luna is a real character, very nosy and a little skittish. I really like her markings. She's at my house along with Ebony, on pregnancy watch along with all the others.
Shade rounds out the group and is rather pathetic. She was beaten up by the others and has some scabs on her belly, so she's a bit sore and twitchy about being touched. Not that I blame her! She's very sweet, just needs a gentle touch. I'm on the look-out for a foster home for her.

Their owner surrendered these guys because she was moving back into her mom's house, and "she's allergic". To hamsters? Really? There was no way you could keep them in a room where she wouldn't be bothered? Please.
Oh hey, we also got a new rabbit today! This is London:
It has been hypothesized by workers at the shelter that this is my fault, because I made the mistake of mentioning that we were down to a manageable number of animals.
Hey, I knocked on wood! Guess that doesn't work.

1 comment:

Kc said...

Hi Laura, I was fortunate enough to adopt Shade. I've changed her name to Penny Pepper. She's a real sweetie! Your write up of her was right on...she chews up toilet paper rolls in no time! I've had to ask friends to bring in their rolls because I can't keep up. heehee