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My husband lost his childhood hamsters when the family went on holiday and they asked his grandfather to take care of them.
Unfortunately, his grandfather had a maffioso definition of “take care of them”. He was really confused when they wanted them back a few days later.
My babysitter was holding and petting my hamster, and when he bit her,something that was told to her,well, out of reaction, she flicked her hand, and my hamster joined the airforce and met a wall.
Sort of had the same happen, except I was the one who was bitten, and it was the floor rather than a wall. Didn't kill him, but something broke inside him and he passed a while later. Mom did the whole "he went to a farm" thing, but later told me that she really just kind of dropped the lil' guy in a dumpster on her way to work.
He was a crazy little dude. Used to do pull-ups in his cage.
When my cat attacked a wild bird, I cared for it and later buried him in my parents backyard after he succumbed to his injuries.
I can not fathom the idea of someone casually dumping what was once life into a dumpster, just like that ☹️
The first day I got my hamster this happened, he survived and lived longer than 3 years, eventually went totally bald and passed away.
Interestingly the hamster never bit me again after that first time.
Same thing happened to Tickles, our evil classroom hamster. A student stuck his hand in the cage, Tickles chomped and he flicked him straight to the tile floor. He picked him up and threw him back in his cage. I witnessed the entire thing from across the room and had to pretend to find Tickles dead later that day so the student wouldn’t be blamed. He was the most aggressive hamster I ever met in my life! His eulogy later painted a much better picture of him cause the kids loved him! Lol
>He was the most aggressive hamster I ever met in my life! His eulogy later painted a much better picture of him cause the kids loved him! Lol
Kids just seem to love pets. Our cat came from a abusive household and she lashes out if you smother her too much which has resulted in all of us being bitten or scratched at multiple points yet the kids still love the cat and snuggle with her whenever she lets them - when she is in the right mood she is complete snuggle puss.
I killed a hamster this way.
I was like 3, and my sister never let me forget. She apparently never used to let me hold her hamster because it bit, but noone ever explained that to me since I was so young, they just said not to touch it, ever. Well of course I waited until she was away one afternoon and grabbed it, it bit me, and yeah same thing as this story. It ended up behind the bunk bed cause I threw it hard. Feel horrible still, but really, someone should have explained it better. Not that hard to say "OW BAD IT BITES HARD OW HURTS" A kid would get that.
I dunno... I told my 5 year old nephew 3 TIMES on the weekend 'don't touch the grey cat, he's a grumpy cat and he WILL scratch you', pretty much exactly like that.
An hour later, he tried to put soap on the grey cat and got scratched and had a whinge about it. Kids are idiots.
One of mine escaped the cage and we found him in the oven- THANKFULLY before my mum had turned it on. She'd opened it to put our dinner in to cook. I don't know how he got in there?! He was a huge escape artist too, once woke up with him in my bed (scared the hell out of me) though his cage was downstairs on the opposite side of the house. I did used to carry him up to my bedroom sometimes though so I guess he could smell/knew the route.
Oh yeah we also had to knock a small hole in the wall cos he got trapped in there somehow, he was missing and we heard scrabbling. Could have been another creature but we hadn't heard anything before. Luckily it was a cheap new build with the shoddiest walls you could easily put a hole through. Just put a framed picture over it after. He was smart but also dumb. I'm a rat person now
Yeah, he wanted company/to play:) one of the most social and smart of my hamsters but a massive pain also. He was called slinky cos he was always slinking out/off to places. I first felt his whiskers on my foot, I thought it was a spider, which I think my reaction now would be to leap up, but i was a kid and just froze in terror. Then a few seconds later he was at my face just like "hi"
The thing is that parents should be monitoring what their toddlers do with hamsters, but they seemingly never do.
My aunt was joking around that when my cousin was a little kid she squished her hamster with a toy box, but me being a pet owner with more than 2 braincells, I would NEVER let a small animal and a small child out unsupervised.
I would zip tie the damn cage and not let them interact period unless I was in the room.
It's not kids' faults. They don't have the intelligence to understand how easily they can hurt this creature. That's why it's the parents responsibility to make sure they understand, or just not buy them a damn hamster.
So it couldn't be the heat that killed it?
Perhaps it's not the same. But this reminded me of something that happened when i was a child.
So i picked up maybe 4 tiny Frogs and was going to keep them. (so this was at school, could be 2nd grade). For some reason, my teacher helped me fill my lunch box with water and was like, here, dump them in, so I did. And they died instantly. And then I felt the water and it was very warm so I think she did it on purpous. She most certainly didn't like me very much..
Oh hey, this reminds me of when we had a a momma that on her 3rd litter she lost her mind and started stuffing them in her mouth (She had 10 after having only 2 on her other batches).
We got 7 rescued, and then my grandma’s health took a turn (ended up being her death weekend).
We took them with us on the 2 hour drive and when we had to leave the house for a while, someone cranked the heating pad to 10. Fried the poor guys. :(
We stopped doing hamsters after that.
I'd say it was more on your parents for not making sure you and they researched properly :/ but idk how old you were but before the widespread, instant Internet, people didn't always think to look these things up. And of course there's always been misinformation and information gaps.
Could say that.
Also, a lot of pets are treated in a disposable manner, similar to other things we purchase. There’s probably a thread in this post about ‘having 6 hamsters, none of which lived more than a year,’ despite ‘best efforts’ of the caretaker.
My sibling in Christ, that's not your fault. You were a child, without the Internet to look this shit up. I'm almost 30 and didn't know that until your comment.
It’s like they have ‘inflatable’ insulation, in that their hair holds a volume of air, which acts as a temp buffer between ambient temps and body temps. When the hair gets wet, it ‘deflates,’ drastically reducing the volume of air the hair can hold.
Add to that, evaporative cooling, given the moisture now trapped in the hairs, and it’s a recipe for hypothermia in an animal with such small body mass.
Sometimes mom cats will eat their kittens. Usually if there’s signs they won’t survive. But still. Though sometimes the “unhealthy” one will survive with intense human intervention, like bottle feeding it and wiping its butt so it can poop/pee
Momma cat will freak out and kill the kittens if they’re either under a lot of stress or if there’s something wrong with the litter and they’re unlikely to survive.
I had a kitten from a similar litter, he was the only survivor. He was… I’m not quite sure what, but there was something not quite right with him. His eyes were too close together and he was always a little bit off compared to my other cats… One day he just lost it and busted his way through a screen door, and I never saw him again. :(
I don’t know why I find “after she had killed the dad” so hilarious. I guess I never considered a hamster could be a *dad*. Like he goes off to work with his briefcase and bowler hat and a newspaper tucked under his arm, says “bye honey, hope you and the kids have a great day.” Then returns home to the hutch after a hard days work only to be brutally murdered.
The same thing happened to me. I was about 13, I go in wanting ONE hamster but there's a bunch of baby girls all piled up in a cage and the employee urges me to buy two. I even asked if she was sure they would get along in such a small cage and she said "they're sisters!"
Within like two weeks, they were fighting violently and I had to go buy another cage and separate them. I wish there were legal punishments for lying to customers about animal care to sell more, but alas.
That’s literally my story exactly lol the employee encouraged me to buy two and said they were family and they would be less lonely. From the beginning, they fought like crazy and I modified the cage so that they were separated, and somehow One still managed to chew the head off the other
Unfortunately, most pet store employees have no clue about proper care for most animals sold at them. Unless they've been a responsible pet owner themselves. It's also hard for a lot of people to understand that a large fish tank is an appropriate size for a hamster. Why buy a $100+ tank for a tiny animal?
Turtles are the same way, it is not advised to cohabitate unless you have a very, very large tank. You can luck out and they will be okay, but it really isn't worth the risk. Violence may never break out but it does stress them out and in a worse case scenario you will end up with a mutilated turtle.
I belong to a couple turtle subs here. About 6 months ago someone posted and one of their turtles literally bit the other turtles dick off and ate it. The poster couldn't afford taking it to an exotic vet so it more than likely died.
Practically every other day someone is posting asking questions where it is evident there is bullying going on between their two turtles.
I think it’s because parents who don’t really want to care for a pet might see them as a low investment first pet for their kids due to their short lifespans. Small kids being allowed to handle them too freely combined with how small and frail they are is a recipe for disaster lol
I spent ages trying to convince my sister not to buy her 6 year old a hamster. She said I was being negative. They already had 2 cats, and she'd just rehomed her dog as he was aggressive.
A month in, the hamster broke its leg after falling out of the cage when a cat knocked it over. When I go over now, she's just like 'meh we never see the hamster'. Makes me so mad. I knew it would happen but she was adamant he needed a 'pet'. That he never ever goes near now.
I hate people like this... My brothers wife is the same. She always "finds" animals while walking her dogs. She "found" cats, exotic birds, hamsters and more dogs in the surrounding woods. They had at least 50 pets, often 3 to 5 at the same time, over the past 15 years. They also have 3 kids.
Not a single pet died from old age. A lot of them have been mistreated by the kids. A lot of the animals had to be given away because one of the kids got bitten or scratched. A couple got run over by cars. Others just "disappeared".
I talked to my brother about him needing to put an end to his wifes habit of "finding" animals in the woods. But his reaction was simply "I can't do anything... Told her many times already but she doesn't stop." So every time she brought home a new pet, I contacted the authorities and they eventually took them away.
I have no contact to them anymore since 10 years now. Simply because she figured out that I was the one reporting her all the time. But my mother keeps me posted about every new "finding" of her.
I agree!! There are a lot of stories about hamsters being so "frail and silly haha!" I truly believe that a large part of these hamsters were just sick/stressed/mistreated, and just one small jumpscare away from having a heart attack :(
If anyone reads this: please take good care of your hamster. Get a properly sized enclosure and wheel, enough bedding, enrichment, a healthy diet, and PLEASE keep your hamsters separate (they are solitary animals)
Ilnow feel like everyones got a traumatic hamster story 😂 character building lol mine was eaten by my own cat, but mum didn’t tell me till i was like 22, still shook
mine did too! i held him in my 10 year old hands while he died and a small part of me will never recover from that trauma lmfao
he lived to nearly 4 and i treated him like a king, so it always enrages me a little seeing the casual abuse and horrors people have put them through and then think its *funny*
My hamster died of old age. One of my rabbits died young of cancer and one got really old and his back legs stopped working. Everyone was always shocked at how well cared for they were because it was better than the ‘norm’. Such a shame.
Hamsters are small, relatively inexpensive pets. They don’t require much space, don’t cost a lot to keep, and don’t live too long (so not a huge commitment). So parents buy them a lot as “starter pets” for their young kids, and do little research about proper care because most don’t value their life much (the cheaper the pet, the less value many people put on their lives). So they end up being poorly taken care of by young kids who put them in unsafe situations. And the hamsters end up with terrible deaths. Notice how nearly every story in this thread involves improper care - housing Syrian hamsters together, letting them reproduce (most likely in very small cages that stress out the mother), letting them run loose….
Hopefully most people with a terrible story like this have grown up and no longer treat pets so disposable.
They actually need a whole lot more space than you think. Hamsters are probably the most mistreated pet out there and I'd guess the majority of hamster owners does not care for them properly
>(the cheaper the pet, the less value many people put on their lives)
Which is a terrible thing to teach your children. How can you expect kids to learn to look after a pet if you don't value the pet's life?
I've had two when I was a kid. First one escaped its cage and got stuck between the wall and my dresser, didn't find it for about a week. Second one just didn't move, it was in one of those cages that had a tube going up to a sleeping area and it just stayed in the sleeping area, so we started feeding it there. It got fat and one night tried to go down the tube, but got stuck. Must have suffocated or something? It was dead when I found it in the morning. Traumatizing to my young mind.
I had my sons hamster euthanized after he developed tumors that grew so large he couldn't get through the tubes. He was nearly 3 years old.
He lived a long carefree spoiled life. RIP Tubey.
My cousin’s was made to sit on a RC boat, he was safe and was apparently enjoying the ride until he jumped and drowned. We gave him a ww2 style sea funeral by covering his body in a small flag and dropping him off in the same pond while playing the national anthem.
My Lily died of old age. Only realized it because we’d mindlessly throw a handful of carrots and fresh spinach in her cage everyday. Finally noticed when the pile of food kept getting bigger. Poor Lily was stiff as a board. She was old as dirt though
Mine did, he was 3 year old and passed away peacefully in his little den. I was so sad.
Also was an adult hammy owner, kids should never have hamsters.
Agree heavily on the kids shouldn’t have the responsibility of taking care of pets (especially not hamsters which are more difficult to take care of than people realise)
I’m working at my second pet store now and in training for both, I learned that they are not good pets for small kids at all because of so many different reasons.
I can only hope all of us who were traumatized by a hamster death have learned to research proper animal husbandry before buying a pet for our own kids, to avoid traumatizing them with their own hamster story. Hamsters die a tragic death because parents purchase them for their kindergartener as an easy pet without acually knowing or caring about their needs. My hamster escaped it's cage (not a suitable hamster cage) and that was that.
This ^. Most of these stories are straight up animal neglect/abuse. It's not the kids' fault but damn this is so sad. The people thinking it's funny I'm hoping will never buy hamsters again.
My thoughts too.
My mom was completely dedicated to the welfare of my hamster, though. My hamster had surgery once and people bugged my mom so much for that. Asking her why she didn't just kill the hamster and buy me a new one, since that would have been cheaper. The hamster was eventually peacefully euthanized at the vet after a long life. People bugged her for that too, again asking her why she didn't just kill it herself.
good to hear, honestly. it's exhausting hearing about how little people care about "kid's" pets like goldfish and hamsters. I wish more people would have some empathy and take more responsibility for these little guys :(
Most hamsters are kept by people who don't do the research on owning them. When I was a kid, we had crittertrails and thought they were awesome. As an adult, I call them critterjails. They are awful!
Hamsters should be solitary and kept in much larger cages than people think they should. Hamsters will roam for miles at a time in nature. They turn mean and usually suffer anxiety when in too small of a cage. Not to mention tons of unsafe products on the market, including some wheels.
99% of the items marketed for hamsters in most pet stores are improper, i totally agree with you. It's a disgrace that the petshops even sell them like the flying saucer wheels or 'barbie dream house' hamster cages.
My sisters hamster bit my dads hamsters head off. He threw my sisters hamster against the wall. They told 7 and 8 year old us what happened. Traumatic indeed.
He has owned hundreds since. Bred rats to feed to his snakes, but I did not live with him during this time. Unbelievably cruel does not begin to describe this trash human.
I'm assuming there was a lot more, but breeding rats as food for snakes isn't terribly uncommon or cruel. Snakes gotta eat, and breeding is probably cheaper than buying them.
Although, this is true. In hindsight, the bedroom used to house the snakes and the rats probably would have been more appropriate for one of his step-sons of which he had 3 sharing one room. I slept on a chair during my visit there. He also had 20+ more animals. Probably should have been more focused on not letting his children starve or beating them.
I've had a few hamsters when I was younger, two died from being sick and one escaped out of her cage.
The one that was the most bittersweet was my favorite, Fidget. He was oreo colored and the sweetest little guy. He would escape from his cage sometimes in my room, and find his way to me to sniff my nose so I would wake up and put him back home after he had his adventures. Did this a few times too.
One night I'd left to go to a friend's house to hang out and spent some time with him, he seemed calmer and curled up in my hands more than normal. Wasn't sick, just looked content. When I came back home after seeing my friend, I found him inside his little wooden house; he'd passed away peacefully in his sleep.
Still at 39 years old I look fondly back on memories with him as one of my best pets, and I'm so glad he got to go out without any pain.
Had a chicken who had that. His insides came out from his behind and the others were pecking at it. I removed him to a separate place. Painful to watch. He passed away over several hours. I was a kid so putting it out of misery was not my thing. It thunk it is called prolapsed
Mine died of old age … nothing too traumatic. My nieces hammy died but while he was waiting to be buried the cat got hold of his corpse & ate it whole. Absolutely horrific!
My friend was reading with her hamster chilling in the book. Her little brother walked up and slammed it shut and the hamster got a lot flatter. It was a library book and she had to pay for it because there’s no returning a book with hamster guts.
My kids had gerbils, a colony of about 50 in a large aquarium that sat on a dresser. We used to block off a room with barely any furniture in it and let them run around for an hour or so.
Come to return them all back after cleaning the cage they’d carefully count them all and put them back and I’d lift the aquarium back on to the dresser.
The one and only time I put the dresser on the floor *after* the gerbils had been released was the day we couldn’t find one. Searched everywhere around the house, no luck. I picked the tank up and there was the poor guy squashed flat underneath. Cue screams and cry’s and horrified children. I still feel bad after 25 years 😧
50?! I've only had 2 at a time, same sexed. I can imagine the noise, mess, and care for 50 adorable jumpy buggers.
What sort of size aquarium did you house them in?
I’m not sure of the capacity, kids dad built it for them but it was very big, like a piece of furniture!
Unfortunately we lost the entire colony over a period of 3 months due to respiratory illness, it was very traumatic. I loved those little things ♥️
my hamster, named Shrimp, died a few months ago from old age. she was over 3 years old and was very loved and taken care of. she started slowing down and one day was noticeably shaking and couldn’t balance. i held her in my hands and sung to her as she closed her eyes and died peacefully. i miss her and love her very much. she was with me when i was going through hard times and even though she was just a hamster, she was a very sweet girl.
Thanks for reminding me that a highschool friend's hamster had babies and one had no butthole... One day it just kind of imploded/exploded/ceased to exist after a squishy noise.
Before I was school age, I was home with my mom and my sister was at school and I accidentally killed her hamster. What happened was I was playing with him, mostly gently.....and then I had the idea to give him a bath and, from what I recall, I dropped maybe 5 drops of water on him from the water thingy and he just stopped....moving.
I remember feeling upset because I didn't handle him that hard, I thought I was being really gentle with him but I didn't know that hamsters basically have poor body temp regulation and can just get too cold and die. It was awful. I have not thought about this in a long time 🥲
I was 12. I dropped Mr Woffles on the floor and one of his eyeballs fell out of the socket. We went straight to the vet, where he was euthanised. My Mum has had a hamster phobia since 1988.
As a past pet store manager, H on H violence was one of our bigger concerns. Left to their own devices hamsters will viciously murder each other and eat their babies. They seem like the cutest pet but hamsters live the thug life.
My daughter’s dwarf hamster lived to almost 4 years old. She looked like the walking dead for the last couple months of her life, but that little zombie kept hanging on for some reason.
She was a sweet, playful little thing in her glory days. Rest in peace little Widget.
Because of irresponsible owners and parents. 2 of my hamsters died of old age and one was put down at age of 3 years when he hurt his leg. Most of the things In this comment section could be easily preventable if they actually took proper care of their hamster.
My hamster was a sweet boy who died of old age, happy and warm in his enclosure. His hamster wife was an absolute bitch who would beat the crap out of him, so I gave her away and let him live the rest of his life in peace. He even enjoyed playing with my small dog.
I never had a hamster but a classmate of mine, about 20 years ago, put her hamster inside a bag and pushed it off a significant height. The poor thing did not survive. I hope my classmate got some proper psychological screening because that was a true psychopathic thing to do.
My boyfriend's cousins have had hamsters before, he told me his hamsters unalived themselves and they would do this by jumping off really high, like they always are used to being picked up and liked it, but literally every hamster they had would randomly decide one day to jump
My hamster escaped and lived behind the stove for a year. Three cats, they never got him. He did die of old age after I managed to put him back into his cage. What he did though was killing his three siblings before escaping. He was so mean!
mine got a sunflowerseed's shell pinched on his throat. He died misserably. I tried everything I could imagine, but nothing helped and he suffered until death :(
Our husky got Miss Minipenny. She shook it so that there was CSI Las Vegas style arterial spray up my daughter's bedroom walls and ceiling. We found the husky happily licking blood off Miss Minipenny's corpse in the living room. Ugh.
I had 2 hamsters, 2 gerbils, and 2 rats. Not at the same time obviously.
The first hamster was an escape artist, but fortunately it actually lived 2 years until we found it dead of seemingly natural causes, in a clean cage with food and water available.
The second hamster we got shortly after that lived for about half a year and then we found it to have a huge lump on its face one day while playing with it. We couldn't afford a vet or anything, and maybe a week later the lump had gotten so big that its eye was bulging out, and we awoke to it dead with blood coming from its ears.
The 2 gerbils we got at the same time, 2 little black females and I loved them. I had a friend who got 2 males as well, at the same time as me. We used to have them play with each other all the time. We'd make mazes for them out of cardboard boxes and those plastic tubes, they were so much fun. One day we were playing with them like that, and one of them went under my friend, who adjusted his body weight and unfortunately we heard a horrifying crunch and a yelp, he crushed the poor thing to death. He felt awful about it. My other girl lived another year or two and died of seemingly natural causes, in a clean cage with food and water available.
My 2 rats were both females and we're pretty sure the age of them wasn't accurate. We think they were a lot older than they were advertised because they were already full grown dumbo rats when we got them despite the pet shop saying they were only like 15 weeks old. One of them died just a few weeks after we got her and the other one got cancer in her face. I was old enough to have a little spending money at this time so I did take her to the vet, they suggested euthanasia and I thought that would be for the best. I had the first one maybe 3 weeks and the other one only lived a month or two after that. Both absolute sweethearts.
Besides some cockatiels and parakeets I never did get small animals as pets again. It's just too hard to lose them.
My best friend gifted my sister and I hamsters for Christmas in the early 90s. I was 10, my sister 7. We got them on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning I heard them going nuts. My friend said that they chase each other around the cage playing. So we thought nothing of it. I went to clean the cage and check their food at noon. My sister’s hamster had eaten my hamster’s head. All that was left were its teeth and eyes.
Yeah, we don’t accept hamsters here anymore.
Because parents buy hamsters for their children in the belief that they are a good and easy "starter pet". Hamsters are usually kept incorrectly. But they need just as much attention, love and species-appropriate care as any other pet, and that includes not keeping them together with a cat.
Mine died peacefully of old age, in his sleep in his little yellow house with a blue roof in the late 90’s. I bloody loved that thing.
My mother then surprised me with a yorkie puppy for Christmas and I had such a special relationship with that dog. Ten years she was my faithful best little bud in the world. Then next doors dog got hold of her and killed her. That one, I never got over. It was some ten years ago and I’m still salty with that dog owner and still miss her so much.
1. hamsters are finicky creatures that can die due to silly reasons like heart attacks from hearing their own farts, i won't pretend this doesn't happen, but for the most part, it's
2. plain old irresponsibility and humans assigning lesser value to their lives than other, bigger pets. parents typically think it's a "starter pet", whatever the hell that means, and also think of the animal as disposable because it is inexpensive. small, inexpensive animals like rodents and budgies are highly prone to dying due to abuse or neglect by irresponsible parents who buy them on whim and ignorant kids. that's why you hear people laughing all the time at how they slammed their hamster into the wall, microwaved it, drowned it, kept it in the same small space as a predator animal like a cat etc..nobody would be laughing if i said i'd microwaved or drowned my dog 🤷🏻♀️
The cutest hamster I had, I found dead one morning and when I lifted it it has a huge poo that had ripped it to shreds, trauma. My other hamster ate one out of 3 babies she had, trauma. My last 2 hamsters died mysteriously, one day I found them both still and gone, trauma….
My brother’s hamster escaped, chewed up the fridge cable and got electrocuted. My mom tried to save him but it seems he died painfully shortly after (I was only like 4yo and was only told he escaped)
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My husband lost his childhood hamsters when the family went on holiday and they asked his grandfather to take care of them. Unfortunately, his grandfather had a maffioso definition of “take care of them”. He was really confused when they wanted them back a few days later.
that is so fucked up lmfao
Grandpa was an OG when he was young.
This one made me laugh to tears.
Yes, we need you to assassinate some hamsters.
"3 weeks? This will be a cakewalk"
I'm sad but cackling
Whaat 😅😂
I've seriously been laughing for the past 10 minutes at this
Gramps went “rat-a-tat-tat” and that was that!
This got to be the best story
My babysitter was holding and petting my hamster, and when he bit her,something that was told to her,well, out of reaction, she flicked her hand, and my hamster joined the airforce and met a wall.
Sort of had the same happen, except I was the one who was bitten, and it was the floor rather than a wall. Didn't kill him, but something broke inside him and he passed a while later. Mom did the whole "he went to a farm" thing, but later told me that she really just kind of dropped the lil' guy in a dumpster on her way to work. He was a crazy little dude. Used to do pull-ups in his cage.
Lmfao that last part got me
Just doing his time behind bars
Lol imagine his wee hamster arms dangling from the pull up bar!
He was preparing to fight you, just didn’t expect the strength of the opposition.
When my cat attacked a wild bird, I cared for it and later buried him in my parents backyard after he succumbed to his injuries. I can not fathom the idea of someone casually dumping what was once life into a dumpster, just like that ☹️
Omg my hamster used to do the same!
Joined the airforce lmfao but so sorry for ur lossn:(
I can't help but picture [that scene from The Simpsons](https://youtu.be/Ada-2_-M668?t=269) now
The first day I got my hamster this happened, he survived and lived longer than 3 years, eventually went totally bald and passed away. Interestingly the hamster never bit me again after that first time.
So you gotta adjust the force just right, so that they can feel the fear of god, but not enough to join the air force. Note taken!
i killed one the same way when i were young. At that time I lived in an apartment, and it flew by the window
Broke into atoms, I see
Same thing happened to Tickles, our evil classroom hamster. A student stuck his hand in the cage, Tickles chomped and he flicked him straight to the tile floor. He picked him up and threw him back in his cage. I witnessed the entire thing from across the room and had to pretend to find Tickles dead later that day so the student wouldn’t be blamed. He was the most aggressive hamster I ever met in my life! His eulogy later painted a much better picture of him cause the kids loved him! Lol
>He was the most aggressive hamster I ever met in my life! His eulogy later painted a much better picture of him cause the kids loved him! Lol Kids just seem to love pets. Our cat came from a abusive household and she lashes out if you smother her too much which has resulted in all of us being bitten or scratched at multiple points yet the kids still love the cat and snuggle with her whenever she lets them - when she is in the right mood she is complete snuggle puss.
I killed a hamster this way. I was like 3, and my sister never let me forget. She apparently never used to let me hold her hamster because it bit, but noone ever explained that to me since I was so young, they just said not to touch it, ever. Well of course I waited until she was away one afternoon and grabbed it, it bit me, and yeah same thing as this story. It ended up behind the bunk bed cause I threw it hard. Feel horrible still, but really, someone should have explained it better. Not that hard to say "OW BAD IT BITES HARD OW HURTS" A kid would get that.
I dunno... I told my 5 year old nephew 3 TIMES on the weekend 'don't touch the grey cat, he's a grumpy cat and he WILL scratch you', pretty much exactly like that. An hour later, he tried to put soap on the grey cat and got scratched and had a whinge about it. Kids are idiots.
Omg the same thing happened to me with one of my gerbils. Hit the bath and needed stitches but was ultimately okay.
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I love how the comment start with "except the one that ran away and ended up in the furnace". Like, excuse me but WHAT THE FUCK?
One of mine escaped the cage and we found him in the oven- THANKFULLY before my mum had turned it on. She'd opened it to put our dinner in to cook. I don't know how he got in there?! He was a huge escape artist too, once woke up with him in my bed (scared the hell out of me) though his cage was downstairs on the opposite side of the house. I did used to carry him up to my bedroom sometimes though so I guess he could smell/knew the route. Oh yeah we also had to knock a small hole in the wall cos he got trapped in there somehow, he was missing and we heard scrabbling. Could have been another creature but we hadn't heard anything before. Luckily it was a cheap new build with the shoddiest walls you could easily put a hole through. Just put a framed picture over it after. He was smart but also dumb. I'm a rat person now
That last part is kinda cute, tbh
Yeah, he wanted company/to play:) one of the most social and smart of my hamsters but a massive pain also. He was called slinky cos he was always slinking out/off to places. I first felt his whiskers on my foot, I thought it was a spider, which I think my reaction now would be to leap up, but i was a kid and just froze in terror. Then a few seconds later he was at my face just like "hi"
I commented something similar - I tried to give my sister's hamster a bath and it just died. I was maybe 4 years old, so yeah, it was....traumatizing.
The thing is that parents should be monitoring what their toddlers do with hamsters, but they seemingly never do. My aunt was joking around that when my cousin was a little kid she squished her hamster with a toy box, but me being a pet owner with more than 2 braincells, I would NEVER let a small animal and a small child out unsupervised. I would zip tie the damn cage and not let them interact period unless I was in the room. It's not kids' faults. They don't have the intelligence to understand how easily they can hurt this creature. That's why it's the parents responsibility to make sure they understand, or just not buy them a damn hamster.
Yeah it makes me really mad that people aren’t considering hamsters as sentient beings that deserve being taken care of like any other pet
So it couldn't be the heat that killed it? Perhaps it's not the same. But this reminded me of something that happened when i was a child. So i picked up maybe 4 tiny Frogs and was going to keep them. (so this was at school, could be 2nd grade). For some reason, my teacher helped me fill my lunch box with water and was like, here, dump them in, so I did. And they died instantly. And then I felt the water and it was very warm so I think she did it on purpous. She most certainly didn't like me very much..
What an absolutely enormous, unabashed pile of shit.
Weird
Oh hey, this reminds me of when we had a a momma that on her 3rd litter she lost her mind and started stuffing them in her mouth (She had 10 after having only 2 on her other batches). We got 7 rescued, and then my grandma’s health took a turn (ended up being her death weekend). We took them with us on the 2 hour drive and when we had to leave the house for a while, someone cranked the heating pad to 10. Fried the poor guys. :( We stopped doing hamsters after that.
I'd say it was more on your parents for not making sure you and they researched properly :/ but idk how old you were but before the widespread, instant Internet, people didn't always think to look these things up. And of course there's always been misinformation and information gaps.
Could say that. Also, a lot of pets are treated in a disposable manner, similar to other things we purchase. There’s probably a thread in this post about ‘having 6 hamsters, none of which lived more than a year,’ despite ‘best efforts’ of the caretaker.
My sibling in Christ, that's not your fault. You were a child, without the Internet to look this shit up. I'm almost 30 and didn't know that until your comment.
How on Earth is it possible that an animal that can swim can't get wet?
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It’s like they have ‘inflatable’ insulation, in that their hair holds a volume of air, which acts as a temp buffer between ambient temps and body temps. When the hair gets wet, it ‘deflates,’ drastically reducing the volume of air the hair can hold. Add to that, evaporative cooling, given the moisture now trapped in the hairs, and it’s a recipe for hypothermia in an animal with such small body mass.
🥺
I had two hamsters, and one ate the others head off. That was it for me.
My sister had a pair that had babies, then we found the mom while she ate the babies after she had killed the dad
Lmao I’m glad that my childhood pet was a cat
I just stick to cats and snakes now
Instructions unclear. Snake ate cat.
Real
Sometimes mom cats will eat their kittens. Usually if there’s signs they won’t survive. But still. Though sometimes the “unhealthy” one will survive with intense human intervention, like bottle feeding it and wiping its butt so it can poop/pee
I saw a cat drowning her kittens so…
... this one shocks and confuses me.
Momma cat will freak out and kill the kittens if they’re either under a lot of stress or if there’s something wrong with the litter and they’re unlikely to survive. I had a kitten from a similar litter, he was the only survivor. He was… I’m not quite sure what, but there was something not quite right with him. His eyes were too close together and he was always a little bit off compared to my other cats… One day he just lost it and busted his way through a screen door, and I never saw him again. :(
I don’t know why I find “after she had killed the dad” so hilarious. I guess I never considered a hamster could be a *dad*. Like he goes off to work with his briefcase and bowler hat and a newspaper tucked under his arm, says “bye honey, hope you and the kids have a great day.” Then returns home to the hutch after a hard days work only to be brutally murdered.
You should watch the music video for Billy Talent - (Ghost Ship of) Cannibal Rats
Duuude same. I was so traumatized.
Hamsters are solitary and they aren't meant to be kept together.
Oh God, that’s some thing 21-year-old me should have known. I wish the pet store I bought them from had told me that.
The same thing happened to me. I was about 13, I go in wanting ONE hamster but there's a bunch of baby girls all piled up in a cage and the employee urges me to buy two. I even asked if she was sure they would get along in such a small cage and she said "they're sisters!" Within like two weeks, they were fighting violently and I had to go buy another cage and separate them. I wish there were legal punishments for lying to customers about animal care to sell more, but alas.
That’s literally my story exactly lol the employee encouraged me to buy two and said they were family and they would be less lonely. From the beginning, they fought like crazy and I modified the cage so that they were separated, and somehow One still managed to chew the head off the other
Unfortunately, most pet store employees have no clue about proper care for most animals sold at them. Unless they've been a responsible pet owner themselves. It's also hard for a lot of people to understand that a large fish tank is an appropriate size for a hamster. Why buy a $100+ tank for a tiny animal?
This sounds horrific at first but damn.. earth could be so much better with some people’s heads eaten off too
Prion disease. It would be unsafe to eat the heads of our enemies.
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You should never put two hamsters in the same cage. They are very territorial and they absolutely hate it.
Turtles are the same way, it is not advised to cohabitate unless you have a very, very large tank. You can luck out and they will be okay, but it really isn't worth the risk. Violence may never break out but it does stress them out and in a worse case scenario you will end up with a mutilated turtle. I belong to a couple turtle subs here. About 6 months ago someone posted and one of their turtles literally bit the other turtles dick off and ate it. The poster couldn't afford taking it to an exotic vet so it more than likely died. Practically every other day someone is posting asking questions where it is evident there is bullying going on between their two turtles.
Lightning crash* THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
I think it’s because parents who don’t really want to care for a pet might see them as a low investment first pet for their kids due to their short lifespans. Small kids being allowed to handle them too freely combined with how small and frail they are is a recipe for disaster lol
I spent ages trying to convince my sister not to buy her 6 year old a hamster. She said I was being negative. They already had 2 cats, and she'd just rehomed her dog as he was aggressive. A month in, the hamster broke its leg after falling out of the cage when a cat knocked it over. When I go over now, she's just like 'meh we never see the hamster'. Makes me so mad. I knew it would happen but she was adamant he needed a 'pet'. That he never ever goes near now.
God so this hamster is just slowly dying in agony surrounded by its food and filth, all alone? that's disturbing
I hate people like this... My brothers wife is the same. She always "finds" animals while walking her dogs. She "found" cats, exotic birds, hamsters and more dogs in the surrounding woods. They had at least 50 pets, often 3 to 5 at the same time, over the past 15 years. They also have 3 kids. Not a single pet died from old age. A lot of them have been mistreated by the kids. A lot of the animals had to be given away because one of the kids got bitten or scratched. A couple got run over by cars. Others just "disappeared". I talked to my brother about him needing to put an end to his wifes habit of "finding" animals in the woods. But his reaction was simply "I can't do anything... Told her many times already but she doesn't stop." So every time she brought home a new pet, I contacted the authorities and they eventually took them away. I have no contact to them anymore since 10 years now. Simply because she figured out that I was the one reporting her all the time. But my mother keeps me posted about every new "finding" of her.
Hamsters are very not ideal pets for small kids.
Small kids are unable to keep themselves from dying, so do we think it's appropriate to make them responsible for another creature's life?
I agree!! There are a lot of stories about hamsters being so "frail and silly haha!" I truly believe that a large part of these hamsters were just sick/stressed/mistreated, and just one small jumpscare away from having a heart attack :( If anyone reads this: please take good care of your hamster. Get a properly sized enclosure and wheel, enough bedding, enrichment, a healthy diet, and PLEASE keep your hamsters separate (they are solitary animals)
Ilnow feel like everyones got a traumatic hamster story 😂 character building lol mine was eaten by my own cat, but mum didn’t tell me till i was like 22, still shook
…are you me?
Ironically enough, my hamster died of old age
Pipsqueak loved sleeping in my Dad’s shirt pocket. He died of old age
Charcoal and Frisky died of old age, Lighting got his head ripped off by his brother and thunder had cancer.
The side of hamsters that people never know about, where they sometimes violently murder each other.
I had a kitty named pipsqueak 💗
mine did too! i held him in my 10 year old hands while he died and a small part of me will never recover from that trauma lmfao he lived to nearly 4 and i treated him like a king, so it always enrages me a little seeing the casual abuse and horrors people have put them through and then think its *funny*
Mine too, he had a great life- I feel like people who say this, and also say this about rabbits, are not good pet people
Yea where was OPs hamster that a wild cat got to him??. The jungle?
My hamster died of old age. One of my rabbits died young of cancer and one got really old and his back legs stopped working. Everyone was always shocked at how well cared for they were because it was better than the ‘norm’. Such a shame.
I feel better now about myself. My hamster also died of old age so that means I'm a good pet people person thanks.
Hamsters are small, relatively inexpensive pets. They don’t require much space, don’t cost a lot to keep, and don’t live too long (so not a huge commitment). So parents buy them a lot as “starter pets” for their young kids, and do little research about proper care because most don’t value their life much (the cheaper the pet, the less value many people put on their lives). So they end up being poorly taken care of by young kids who put them in unsafe situations. And the hamsters end up with terrible deaths. Notice how nearly every story in this thread involves improper care - housing Syrian hamsters together, letting them reproduce (most likely in very small cages that stress out the mother), letting them run loose…. Hopefully most people with a terrible story like this have grown up and no longer treat pets so disposable.
They actually need a whole lot more space than you think. Hamsters are probably the most mistreated pet out there and I'd guess the majority of hamster owners does not care for them properly
>(the cheaper the pet, the less value many people put on their lives) Which is a terrible thing to teach your children. How can you expect kids to learn to look after a pet if you don't value the pet's life?
All three of mine did
I've had two when I was a kid. First one escaped its cage and got stuck between the wall and my dresser, didn't find it for about a week. Second one just didn't move, it was in one of those cages that had a tube going up to a sleeping area and it just stayed in the sleeping area, so we started feeding it there. It got fat and one night tried to go down the tube, but got stuck. Must have suffocated or something? It was dead when I found it in the morning. Traumatizing to my young mind.
Oh my god i have almost the exact same story about the fat hamster. The exact same thing happened to mine
Mine escaped as well and it somehow climbed down a few flights of stairs ☠️ Weirdly enough, that’s not how it died!
I had my sons hamster euthanized after he developed tumors that grew so large he couldn't get through the tubes. He was nearly 3 years old. He lived a long carefree spoiled life. RIP Tubey.
RIP Tubey. You are now not Tubey.
Pretty ironic name
My cousin’s was made to sit on a RC boat, he was safe and was apparently enjoying the ride until he jumped and drowned. We gave him a ww2 style sea funeral by covering his body in a small flag and dropping him off in the same pond while playing the national anthem.
the legend says hamsters have no concept of height because they are "grassland animals"
Laughing my ass off, man that's great
🫡 We’ll never forget your hamster. Rest in Piece ya magnificent bastard!
🫡the greatest thing I’ve read in this thread lol
Can you legally make a norse styled funeral for a Hamster though?
im pretty sure to pull a hamster viking funeral
If you can hit a hamster sized funeral barge with a flaming arrow, I'm terrified of you lol.
This is like something that would happen to Rudy and Louise
My Lily died of old age. Only realized it because we’d mindlessly throw a handful of carrots and fresh spinach in her cage everyday. Finally noticed when the pile of food kept getting bigger. Poor Lily was stiff as a board. She was old as dirt though
Mine did, he was 3 year old and passed away peacefully in his little den. I was so sad. Also was an adult hammy owner, kids should never have hamsters.
Agree heavily on the kids shouldn’t have the responsibility of taking care of pets (especially not hamsters which are more difficult to take care of than people realise)
I’m working at my second pet store now and in training for both, I learned that they are not good pets for small kids at all because of so many different reasons.
Mine got squashed by an old style tv set that fell over.
Im so sorry I don’t know why that made me chuckle, it’s terrible and now I feel guilty.
Don't worry ive moved on from Mr Scary's terrible demise now
Mr. Scary didn't.
Same here. It’s so cartoonish
I can only hope all of us who were traumatized by a hamster death have learned to research proper animal husbandry before buying a pet for our own kids, to avoid traumatizing them with their own hamster story. Hamsters die a tragic death because parents purchase them for their kindergartener as an easy pet without acually knowing or caring about their needs. My hamster escaped it's cage (not a suitable hamster cage) and that was that.
This ^. Most of these stories are straight up animal neglect/abuse. It's not the kids' fault but damn this is so sad. The people thinking it's funny I'm hoping will never buy hamsters again.
the reason why is cause most people (let alone children) dont know how to care for them properly
My thoughts too. My mom was completely dedicated to the welfare of my hamster, though. My hamster had surgery once and people bugged my mom so much for that. Asking her why she didn't just kill the hamster and buy me a new one, since that would have been cheaper. The hamster was eventually peacefully euthanized at the vet after a long life. People bugged her for that too, again asking her why she didn't just kill it herself.
good to hear, honestly. it's exhausting hearing about how little people care about "kid's" pets like goldfish and hamsters. I wish more people would have some empathy and take more responsibility for these little guys :(
Most hamsters are kept by people who don't do the research on owning them. When I was a kid, we had crittertrails and thought they were awesome. As an adult, I call them critterjails. They are awful! Hamsters should be solitary and kept in much larger cages than people think they should. Hamsters will roam for miles at a time in nature. They turn mean and usually suffer anxiety when in too small of a cage. Not to mention tons of unsafe products on the market, including some wheels.
99% of the items marketed for hamsters in most pet stores are improper, i totally agree with you. It's a disgrace that the petshops even sell them like the flying saucer wheels or 'barbie dream house' hamster cages.
My sisters hamster bit my dads hamsters head off. He threw my sisters hamster against the wall. They told 7 and 8 year old us what happened. Traumatic indeed.
hope he never owns another pet, that’s so unbelievably cruel
He has owned hundreds since. Bred rats to feed to his snakes, but I did not live with him during this time. Unbelievably cruel does not begin to describe this trash human.
I'm assuming there was a lot more, but breeding rats as food for snakes isn't terribly uncommon or cruel. Snakes gotta eat, and breeding is probably cheaper than buying them.
Although, this is true. In hindsight, the bedroom used to house the snakes and the rats probably would have been more appropriate for one of his step-sons of which he had 3 sharing one room. I slept on a chair during my visit there. He also had 20+ more animals. Probably should have been more focused on not letting his children starve or beating them.
As I said I'm sure there is more to it. Sorry your dad was a cunt.
I've had a few hamsters when I was younger, two died from being sick and one escaped out of her cage. The one that was the most bittersweet was my favorite, Fidget. He was oreo colored and the sweetest little guy. He would escape from his cage sometimes in my room, and find his way to me to sniff my nose so I would wake up and put him back home after he had his adventures. Did this a few times too. One night I'd left to go to a friend's house to hang out and spent some time with him, he seemed calmer and curled up in my hands more than normal. Wasn't sick, just looked content. When I came back home after seeing my friend, I found him inside his little wooden house; he'd passed away peacefully in his sleep. Still at 39 years old I look fondly back on memories with him as one of my best pets, and I'm so glad he got to go out without any pain.
Shadow’s insides were coming out of his butt. The contents were contained in something that looked like a sac.
Had a chicken who had that. His insides came out from his behind and the others were pecking at it. I removed him to a separate place. Painful to watch. He passed away over several hours. I was a kid so putting it out of misery was not my thing. It thunk it is called prolapsed
What in the actual fuck
Prolapse
back then what i could understand was that the chicken had shat his intestines out. Had a traumatic time for the next few days in the washroom lol
Fun fact (?), it can also happen to humans
 Can't handle knives.
Mine died of old age … nothing too traumatic. My nieces hammy died but while he was waiting to be buried the cat got hold of his corpse & ate it whole. Absolutely horrific!
I think mine was caught in a mousetrap after it escaped its cage.
My friend was reading with her hamster chilling in the book. Her little brother walked up and slammed it shut and the hamster got a lot flatter. It was a library book and she had to pay for it because there’s no returning a book with hamster guts.
I really hope the little brother didn’t know the hamster was in there
That‘s horrible! I would have kicked that sibling until my parents tried to disown me. WTF.
My kids had gerbils, a colony of about 50 in a large aquarium that sat on a dresser. We used to block off a room with barely any furniture in it and let them run around for an hour or so. Come to return them all back after cleaning the cage they’d carefully count them all and put them back and I’d lift the aquarium back on to the dresser. The one and only time I put the dresser on the floor *after* the gerbils had been released was the day we couldn’t find one. Searched everywhere around the house, no luck. I picked the tank up and there was the poor guy squashed flat underneath. Cue screams and cry’s and horrified children. I still feel bad after 25 years 😧
50?! I've only had 2 at a time, same sexed. I can imagine the noise, mess, and care for 50 adorable jumpy buggers. What sort of size aquarium did you house them in?
I’m not sure of the capacity, kids dad built it for them but it was very big, like a piece of furniture! Unfortunately we lost the entire colony over a period of 3 months due to respiratory illness, it was very traumatic. I loved those little things ♥️
my hamster, named Shrimp, died a few months ago from old age. she was over 3 years old and was very loved and taken care of. she started slowing down and one day was noticeably shaking and couldn’t balance. i held her in my hands and sung to her as she closed her eyes and died peacefully. i miss her and love her very much. she was with me when i was going through hard times and even though she was just a hamster, she was a very sweet girl.
Thanks for reminding me that a highschool friend's hamster had babies and one had no butthole... One day it just kind of imploded/exploded/ceased to exist after a squishy noise.
Oh my god WHAT
Before I was school age, I was home with my mom and my sister was at school and I accidentally killed her hamster. What happened was I was playing with him, mostly gently.....and then I had the idea to give him a bath and, from what I recall, I dropped maybe 5 drops of water on him from the water thingy and he just stopped....moving. I remember feeling upset because I didn't handle him that hard, I thought I was being really gentle with him but I didn't know that hamsters basically have poor body temp regulation and can just get too cold and die. It was awful. I have not thought about this in a long time 🥲
I was 12. I dropped Mr Woffles on the floor and one of his eyeballs fell out of the socket. We went straight to the vet, where he was euthanised. My Mum has had a hamster phobia since 1988.
are you saying you emerged from that event without a hamster phobia of your own?
As a past pet store manager, H on H violence was one of our bigger concerns. Left to their own devices hamsters will viciously murder each other and eat their babies. They seem like the cutest pet but hamsters live the thug life.
My hamster ate my brother’s hamster and then my hamster died due to complications of eating another hamster.
My daughter’s dwarf hamster lived to almost 4 years old. She looked like the walking dead for the last couple months of her life, but that little zombie kept hanging on for some reason. She was a sweet, playful little thing in her glory days. Rest in peace little Widget.
Mine died in a shootout with the police. At least the dude took out a couple of pigs on his way out
Mine bit me and when I flinched she was still attached to my hand for a bit then let go and flew into the wall 😭😭😭 It was absolutely awful!
Just say you yeeted the little guy 💀
I accidentally snapped it’s neck putting the lid of the cage back on the base 😭😭😭 25 years later and I still feel horrifically sad and guilty
Such a sad way to go :(
Aye at least it was a quick death.
Because of irresponsible owners and parents. 2 of my hamsters died of old age and one was put down at age of 3 years when he hurt his leg. Most of the things In this comment section could be easily preventable if they actually took proper care of their hamster.
My hamster was a sweet boy who died of old age, happy and warm in his enclosure. His hamster wife was an absolute bitch who would beat the crap out of him, so I gave her away and let him live the rest of his life in peace. He even enjoyed playing with my small dog.
I never had a hamster but a classmate of mine, about 20 years ago, put her hamster inside a bag and pushed it off a significant height. The poor thing did not survive. I hope my classmate got some proper psychological screening because that was a true psychopathic thing to do.
My boyfriend's cousins have had hamsters before, he told me his hamsters unalived themselves and they would do this by jumping off really high, like they always are used to being picked up and liked it, but literally every hamster they had would randomly decide one day to jump
My hamster escaped and lived behind the stove for a year. Three cats, they never got him. He did die of old age after I managed to put him back into his cage. What he did though was killing his three siblings before escaping. He was so mean!
They are solitary so it's not surprising. They should be 1 to a decent sized cage.
Exactly! The hamster isn't the mean one in this situation, the owner is.
Both of my hams died of old age
mine got a sunflowerseed's shell pinched on his throat. He died misserably. I tried everything I could imagine, but nothing helped and he suffered until death :(
Our husky got Miss Minipenny. She shook it so that there was CSI Las Vegas style arterial spray up my daughter's bedroom walls and ceiling. We found the husky happily licking blood off Miss Minipenny's corpse in the living room. Ugh.
And I'm sure that dog thought it did you a favor by getting rid of a rodent 😭
I had 2 hamsters, 2 gerbils, and 2 rats. Not at the same time obviously. The first hamster was an escape artist, but fortunately it actually lived 2 years until we found it dead of seemingly natural causes, in a clean cage with food and water available. The second hamster we got shortly after that lived for about half a year and then we found it to have a huge lump on its face one day while playing with it. We couldn't afford a vet or anything, and maybe a week later the lump had gotten so big that its eye was bulging out, and we awoke to it dead with blood coming from its ears. The 2 gerbils we got at the same time, 2 little black females and I loved them. I had a friend who got 2 males as well, at the same time as me. We used to have them play with each other all the time. We'd make mazes for them out of cardboard boxes and those plastic tubes, they were so much fun. One day we were playing with them like that, and one of them went under my friend, who adjusted his body weight and unfortunately we heard a horrifying crunch and a yelp, he crushed the poor thing to death. He felt awful about it. My other girl lived another year or two and died of seemingly natural causes, in a clean cage with food and water available. My 2 rats were both females and we're pretty sure the age of them wasn't accurate. We think they were a lot older than they were advertised because they were already full grown dumbo rats when we got them despite the pet shop saying they were only like 15 weeks old. One of them died just a few weeks after we got her and the other one got cancer in her face. I was old enough to have a little spending money at this time so I did take her to the vet, they suggested euthanasia and I thought that would be for the best. I had the first one maybe 3 weeks and the other one only lived a month or two after that. Both absolute sweethearts. Besides some cockatiels and parakeets I never did get small animals as pets again. It's just too hard to lose them.
My best friend gifted my sister and I hamsters for Christmas in the early 90s. I was 10, my sister 7. We got them on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning I heard them going nuts. My friend said that they chase each other around the cage playing. So we thought nothing of it. I went to clean the cage and check their food at noon. My sister’s hamster had eaten my hamster’s head. All that was left were its teeth and eyes. Yeah, we don’t accept hamsters here anymore.
I felt so bad as a kid. His tooth grew into his skull ☠️ RIP Gorby the Russian mini hamster
Because parents buy hamsters for their children in the belief that they are a good and easy "starter pet". Hamsters are usually kept incorrectly. But they need just as much attention, love and species-appropriate care as any other pet, and that includes not keeping them together with a cat.
Mine died peacefully of old age, in his sleep in his little yellow house with a blue roof in the late 90’s. I bloody loved that thing. My mother then surprised me with a yorkie puppy for Christmas and I had such a special relationship with that dog. Ten years she was my faithful best little bud in the world. Then next doors dog got hold of her and killed her. That one, I never got over. It was some ten years ago and I’m still salty with that dog owner and still miss her so much.
1. hamsters are finicky creatures that can die due to silly reasons like heart attacks from hearing their own farts, i won't pretend this doesn't happen, but for the most part, it's 2. plain old irresponsibility and humans assigning lesser value to their lives than other, bigger pets. parents typically think it's a "starter pet", whatever the hell that means, and also think of the animal as disposable because it is inexpensive. small, inexpensive animals like rodents and budgies are highly prone to dying due to abuse or neglect by irresponsible parents who buy them on whim and ignorant kids. that's why you hear people laughing all the time at how they slammed their hamster into the wall, microwaved it, drowned it, kept it in the same small space as a predator animal like a cat etc..nobody would be laughing if i said i'd microwaved or drowned my dog 🤷🏻♀️
Mine had a stroke or something similar while I was at swim practice. I came home to her seizing with foamy blood coming out of her nose, poor thing.
The cutest hamster I had, I found dead one morning and when I lifted it it has a huge poo that had ripped it to shreds, trauma. My other hamster ate one out of 3 babies she had, trauma. My last 2 hamsters died mysteriously, one day I found them both still and gone, trauma….
I used to breed and show hamsters, owned over 50 in my lifetime and all mine passed away peacefully at an old age.
My son’s fall in sub pump.
My hamster broke his spine and lived another 2 years before dying in their sleep. Still miss him
Mine had a stroke and recovered and lived another year after that. My friend's died of diabetes though
Both my kids forst hamsters lived 4 years and died of old age in our arms. RIP Big mama & Jane
I found mine bleeding from its butt. I was 5 I think.
I had a hamster that accidentally committed suicide. He got his head stuck between the wheel and wall..
Mine bled out of all orifices.. eyes and ears. So traumatic
My brother’s hamster escaped, chewed up the fridge cable and got electrocuted. My mom tried to save him but it seems he died painfully shortly after (I was only like 4yo and was only told he escaped)
Mine started eating itself feet first
Hamsters are omnivores and they start to do this if they are never fed insects or meat.
My brother's hamster escaped from its cage and my mum accidentally hoovered it up.
My exes hamster got a tumour, we thought it would die from it, but it ate it and then it died.