Trip to the vet with Oreo. Keep a vet fund.

Two years ago we noticed Oreo had a dull patch in her left eye.  I remember seeing a programme where a guinea pig had a grass seed stuck in her eyelid, and thought this must be what was wrong.  I made a vet appointment and Oreo was fully checked.  The vet put some fluorescent dye in her eye and advised me that this was not a grass seed.  Oreo has a hole in her cornea and it went quite deep.  The vet took quite sometime trying to flush the dye back out.  He advised that hay was an unlikely suspect as it would only scratch the eye surface at most. 

Oreo enjoying the Sun

I was at a loss as to what could have happened, When Oreo is in heat she does run around trying to mount Tink (who is a kicker), but this did not seem to fit, as to make a hole Tink's claws would have to have gotten stuck (I really am not sure on this one).  It was however the only thing I could think of that would cause such damage. The vet took me through everything we could do to try and help Oreo but was not hopeful that we could save Oreo's eye.  After receiving antibiotic eye drops and a serum that could potentially heal damage to the eyes, the vet still advised that because the hole went so deep into the eye, we may not have been able to save her eye.  I was heartbroken, Oreo was not even a year old, she was not an old guinea pig but, I was hopeful that this medication would work and heal her eye.  That vet trip cost just under £100 and I learned that I needed to have a vet fund for my guinea pigs, and Hamsters.  This may not have been the end of the tale as the operation to remove the infected eye may have run into the £100's but I love my animals, so if this is what it would take to get Oreo back to full health, this is what I was willing to do.

This has wicker in it to keep it sturdy, As the girls chewed it the wicker snapped

When I got home and put the guinea pigs back into there pen, I noticed one thing that could have done that much damage to Oreo's eye. It was a sea grass hideaway; held together by thin wicker sticks.  It seemed like a great house and chew toy for them when we got it.  My fiance reminded me that a week previously we heard Oreo give out a 'wheek' that was very strange, we took her and Tink out of the cage and checked them over at the time, but they both seemed okay.  Now, in retrospect  we thought that maybe Oreo got poked in her eye by a piece of sea-grass, or the wicker holding it together.  I understand this an extremely rate occurrence, but please beware of these, or items made from these, as we now realise that this is the most likely explanation for the amount of damage to Oreo's eye.

Taking your pet to the vet is always stressful when its not just for their check up. that visit was extra stressful for Oreo and the family.  I decided to write up this post to try and save other guinea pig owners from the same anxiety and worry by advising that these items are maybe better suited in a play pen when the guinea pigs are being supervised, rather than in the permanent pen where 24/7 supervision is not possible.  This episode was not all doom and gloom however as we did get medication to clear the infection up and try and heal the cornea and also, on the way out I spotted a little Roborovski up for adoption (I will tell his tale later).  Upon Oreo's follow up appointment two weeks later she was given the all clear which was a huge relief to us all.  She is now classed as 2nd in command (General Oreo) and we now have a herd of 4 sows living, so far, happily together.

All 4 Girls enjoying there new home 

Gizmo exploring his clean and shiny cage

Gizmo is my Winter White Dwarf Hamster, he is around 4 months old and is very friendly.  He is surprisingly tame for a dwarf hamster and has been this way since day 3 of bringing him home.  The one thing he does get grumpy at however, is when his things get moved around his cage.  I try to keep everything where it is, but, it is a live and learn process, for instance having the sand bath at the very front of the cage was not my brightest idea ever. The sand was too close to his sleeping area, it wasn't very private for him, and, the Perspex got really dusty.  Upon cleaning his cage this time, I moved his sand bath to the back, in the opposite corner from his sleeping space.  He got grumpy.  Now even when Gizmo is grumpy he doesn't tend to bite, he just refuses to step on to my hand and be picked up, he is huffy more than grumpy.  Anyway, this morning he woke up and started to explore a little so I grabbed a quick video of him rummaging around his new, clean surroundings.

Introduction to Gizmo

Gizmo does like Pine nuts 

Gizmo is our 1 year old old Russian Dwarf hybrid with a dominant Winter White gene.  He weighs 51g and he is our tamest and friendliest hamster who actually seeks out human attention, practically daily.  Gizmo is very unusual because he was bought from a pet store and was completely tame by day 3 of being with us.

On day two he would come out when I called his name or if I said Nom Noms (food/treats), he still does.  He was one of our first hamsters, as I had only ever had one hamster about 15 years ago. When the pet shop sold me his cage and told me it was a life long cage, I believed them, but that was my mistake.  Within about a month I had built him a bigger and better habitat which he is still in and he knows every part of it. As you can see in the left hand picture below, there is a huge difference in size from the store bought cage to his new home.

Looking cute at Christmas 

All of our dwarf hamsters have an absolute minimum of 2,800 cm squared (most are bigger than this.  Our Syrian hamsters have much much bigger habitats of around 7000 - 7500 cm squared.  Gizmo used to love getting around in his little ball but as he is so tame we tend to let him free roam on the sofa with supervision.  He is one of my hamsters and is very strongly bonded to me.  If my partner or my daughter put their hands out for him to climb on he rarely goes to them however if he is with one of them and I put my hand out to him, he will run onto it straight away.

Gizmo likes to burrow into his substrate and
pops his head out to be nosy 

Gizmo isn't a great fan of nuts in any form (unless it is peanut butter, which is a limited treat), but he does love meal-worms.  we buy them dried and in the summer I soak them in warm water.  He also loves pumpkin and sunflower seeds and Greek yogurt (again limited treat).  I occasionally make little porridge oat balls for the hamsters.  I mix the oats with water, peanuts, meal-worms and seeds, roll them into little balls and bake them for 10 minutes.  These are high in protein but not in fat so are quite healthy if given 1 or 2 a week. Like I said, he is unusual as store bought pets are rarely tamed as quickly as he was.  He is the most affectionate of all our 6 hamsters (to me anyway) and has never bitten anyone, cackled at anyone or threatened anyone.  So this is my introduction to Gizmo, my tamest fur baby.

Gizmo running around

Syrian Hamster Cage options

Syrian Hamsters don't cost a lot to maintain however if you are going to give them the best life you can, the outlay can be a little higher than expected.  This is because of the cage required for them to live in. On average a Syrian Hamster can run between 7 and 9 miles in any given night,  many people don't realise this and buy small cages for their Syrians.  they don't realise that the hamster needs a lot more space than you get in a £30 - £40 cage, the sizes of which range from tiny, to, too small. 
There are one of three ways you can go about supplying a large, good home for your new Syrian Hamster.

One option available is that you can buy the UK recommended cage size (50cm x80cm/4.3 square feet)  for around £75.  This cage is a Savic, Hamster Heaven Model.  We have two of these cages, one for Fudge, who loves his and one for Lil Bear, who unfortunately hated his.  Fudge is very happy in his Hamster Heaven cage and never chews the bars, Lil Bear on the other hand constantly (and violently) stress chewed the bars on the cage.

Lil Bear spent hours running excess energy off on his wheel too, so for Lil Bear, we opted for the second option. The IKEA Detolf option with the Kallax unit to stand it on.  This option is more expensive and cost a total of £55 for the Kallax unit (although the price varies by colour) and a Detolf at £50.  Now you may not need to buy the Kallax unit to sit the Detolf on, in which case it works out cheaper than the Hamster Heaven.  We had already paid £75 for the Hamster Heaven, it is however worth it knowing Lil Bear is much happier now.  Since buying the Detolf we have discovered that he is in fact a digger and he has hidey holes all over the Detolf.  He barely uses his wheel now but at least he has the option if he wants to.

Berars Detolf

Bear

Same Detolf, Different set up 

There is also a third option (for those of you with DIY skills), and that is, to design and build your own cage.  I have built my own cage for my Dwarf hamster and I am not even that skilled at DIY, but it was an achievement, and I loved building it for him. This will be discussed under the category, DIY cages & toys.

There is no guarantee that your Syrian hamster will like his, or her, Hamster Heaven as much as Fudge does.  We suspect however that if we put Fudge into a Detolf cage (which we do plan to do later this year) he will love it just as much as Lil Bear.  This is because Fudge spends his time on the wheel at night, so he is not lazy, and does still have excess energy to run off, he just doesn't get upset about it or chew the bars, he is just a very Zen Hamster.  Being able to explore a larger space (163 x43cm/ 7.4 square feet) would be good for him, and we may just find out that he is a digger too, or maybe not, but to give him the choice is priceless.

My advise to anyone wanting to get a Syrian hamster is to get the biggest cage possible and make the larger financial outlays in the beginning (even before you get your hamster) as we have made these mistakes already and now we have several cages stashed in our loft doing nothing now.  We do however have very happy hamsters now.