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View Full Version : hamster suddenly turned evil!


mushroom
February 3rd, 2003, 12:01 AM
My little girl got two dwarf hamsters for her birthday on Dec. 16th.
Everything was going fine until yesterday, when one of them bit her. It was a pretty nasty bite - she was bleeding quite a bit.
She put it back in it's cage and then several hours later it bit her again, and then it bit my son. Now, if you put your hand in the cage it runs to attack. It bites pens, pencils etc. too. The other hamster is still friendly. We are baffled. Any ideas?

Thanks.
VeggieMonster
February 3rd, 2003, 12:19 AM
That's not very uncommon for dwarf hamsters, my gf works at Petco and hates handling those things. She said sometimes after handling them a lot they will become friendly.. maybe you should wear gloves for a while when playing with them?? really really thick ones...
mushroom
February 3rd, 2003, 02:02 AM
VeggieMonster, for some reason your post made my little girl giggle when I read it to her...I think it was the "really really thick ones."

We were told that we were buying two sisters, but my husband thinks that the aggressive one may be a male and has now decided to protect his mate. We don't know though...
Birdlady
February 4th, 2003, 01:25 AM
I would just leave that hamster alone and not attempt to pick it up or taunt it (it may feel taunted) with pens and pencils. I noticed the dwarfs are like that. Many small creatures are like that when they want to be left alone or just don't like being handled. It may have lost it's patience to being handled, and maybe did not like it in the first place. If the two start fighting you will need to seperate them or they could kill each other. I've had hamsters and had to do that.
LadyFaile
February 6th, 2003, 06:03 PM
maybe it's the way she's picking him/her up, or maybe there's something wrong or he/she has a sensitive spot that hurts when it's touched. check for anything, like a sore, a bite, rash, maybe something stuck in it's foot, etc. just be extremely gentle handling her when you do it and yeah maybe wear gloves
luckiecharms
February 9th, 2003, 11:10 AM
sorry to hear about that. Is your hampster acting any nicer? Maybe it was just for a couple days and it will return to acting normal. But yeah I would wear gloves when holding it like LF mentioned.
Skylark
February 9th, 2003, 08:05 PM
Hmmm the dwarf hamster my sister has is a very nice creature. It's pooped on me a few times, sure, but that's not the same as biting. Do the hamsters get enough attention? They might not be used to being touched because of being ignored.
kpickell
February 9th, 2003, 08:25 PM
the hamsters should be seperated. it'll go mad in it's current housing situation.
mushroom
February 10th, 2003, 03:29 PM
Well, the hamster is back to being nice. We have no idea why.
She never was ignored and even while she was biting humans she continued to nicely play with her own sister.
Their house is pretty fantastic and their 9-year-old mistress is always "redecorating" it for them and adding new toys etc.
I guess we will never know what it was...