biting hamster

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We have had many a hamster here. I would recommend that you use this creature as a lesson for your child.
  1. We mad a choice to purchase this pet and will see it through to its natural death. To do some of the suggestions listed above is irresponsible and wrong. While this is only a hamster and not your sister or grandmother we are going to provide for a situation we brought upon ourselves.
  2. I would thoroughly clean the cage and set him up with enough food and water to be left alone for a week. We are trying to reboot his behavior. Place his cage in the laundry room or somewhere where there is little or no family or pet traffic.
  3. After a week(maybe you actually took a trip) you will want to clean the cage again and while he is out wear a pair of thick gloves and gentle handle him. Are you sure he is a male? Often the female is the angry one since she is in heat every 4 days. If the genitals and the anus are next to each other with no space it is a girl. If there is a half inch space and he has a large pink scrotum then it is a boy.
  4. This is going to take some time. You need to be patient with him and try to tame him. Touch him in the cage after the week without picking him up and gradually he should come around.
  5. Search the net and make sure this is a Syrian or dwarf hamster by looking at pictures. There is a Eurpoean hamster that is bigger and CAN’T be tamed. I doubt this is that type but if it is disregard my suggestions above.
www.petwebsite.com/hamsters.asp
 
You could send the hamster to me, and I’ll have my cats tame it for you!😃
 
I had a biting ferret, and he latched on once to my wrist so i grabbed him by the back of the neck and flicked him on the nose pretty solid. Never bit me again. I wonder if that works for hamsters.

We had a hamster that didn’t like us and apparently our dog found out and ate the hamster. Thats when I was around 7 or 8. Just an idea. Good protein, keeps the dog healthy. 😃
 
I totally agree with genealogist, post # 21.
ANY pet adoption should be done with much fore thought and a lifetime committment.
I’ve never had hamsters (too many cats in my house) but I’ve never known of any that didn’t bite. (Friends, biology class, etc.)
 
we have successfully had other pets and commitment is not really the problem. The real problem is that the hammy is not really a pet and, given tnat he is becoming more aggressive, I doubt he will become petlike. We are disappointed cos I honestly thought that after a couple of bites he would tame. We also have a dog and have kept fish for several years and I would consider myself to be an animal lover but I DO value my fingers! I certainly never thought the cheeky little critter would turn into a pit bull hamster. He is far harder work than the dog. We are going to try and rehome him with adults rather than kids but I won’t be feeding him to the dog, some of you will be pleased to hear!
 
ack said:
Personally, if I couldn’t get the hamster to stop biting, I would just stop trying to handle it. Feed it, give it water, and use heavy gloves when transferring it to another container when cleaning its cage.
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If the advise for taming the hamster doesn’t work - it sounds like you have already done this though and you can’t rehome it this is the next best advise.

See if you can find some nice garden gloves that are relatively flexible so you can handle this little monster umm hamster
🙂 .

Brenda V.
 
I don’t see this as a big problem. Hamsters can be contained, a biting dog or cat would be harder to manage. You might want to check with some animal rescue groups or shelters (check the internet)- there may be rescue groups for hamsters…they have them for ferrets, cats, different dog breeds, birds, etc. Also a few animal shelters DO take hamsters and small mammals but you have to call around. I am not sure why the little guy is biting…maybe he needs a friend…or Prozac? You can also check with a vet to make sure he’s not in any pain or has any medical issues causing him to bite.
 
you guys are mean…don’t let the poor thing loose outside. 😦 i actually “adopted” my current hamster that way; my brother’s gf found her running around outside being chased by her cat.

my hamster has a glass aquarium for a cage, and actually has an “upstairs” called a Small Animal High Rise. (i got the addition because she was growing bigger than the dwarf hamsters i used to have who were fine with the space the aquarium provided.) at any rate, she enjoys chewing on the bars of the metal cage (which is not recommended, but i’ve tried everything to stop her). maybe lots of chew items would help? hamsters need to chew because i believe they wear down their teeth and new teeth come in, so they are constantly “teething”.

as for cleaning the hamster’s cage/rearranging–hamsters are creatures of habit, so to speak, so they like everything how they have it. (my hamster actually took her honey stick and pushed it down the ramp of the upper level when i put it up there once instead of in her usual spot).

do you have an exercise ball? stick the ball in the cage and let the hamster crawl into it (put food in there if necessary) while you are cleaning the cage. then just let him climb out when you’re done. like another poster said, make sure he has enough food/water for a week. he should be ok with water; if he needs more food, put some in while he’s sleeping, or just take him out in the ball if you have to.
 
I don’t keep animals that cant’ be “tamed”. That is my house rule. If its mean,especially when it attacks when we are doing routine maintenance, then its out.

I don’t have the time, energy or money to care for a creature that behaves that way. I take time to train, tame my pets, but over the years (and several hundred animals) every once in a while there is one that just can’t be dealt with. There are animals that have something wrong in the head. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. I don’t see a good reason to pass these critters on to someone else, so I put them down.

Hamsters don’t like to be woken up to play. They are nocturnal critters. Some can be tamed, but many are merely cage pets, we enjoy their antics, but not a great deal of hands on time. But some are as decribed, and will attack, and hang on when someone tries to do routine cleaning. I don’t see any benefits, not even moral ones of continuing such a relationship.

cheddar
 
I would argue that in little situations like this is the moral lesson we want to teach our children. Yes, there are situations where the hamster would have to go. If it were carrying a deadly germ or if soemone was deadly allergic to it. However, this extremes are ALWAYS met by well meaning yet lazy people who want the easy way out.

For example, an ectopic pregnancy threatens a woman’s life. Due to double effect she is allowed to have her fallopian tube removed. Removing diseased tissue is morally right and the loss of the baby if it were still alive was foreseen but not the primamry purpose of the procedure. This moral situation is very unique in its facts but many would try to expand this to a diabetic woman, an older woman, a woman who just lost(death or flight) her husband and already has 3 kids(Kate Michelman of NARAL fame). We need to leave extreme exceptions as extreme exceptions and fight to keep people from trying to create blanket justification for immoral acts.

This would also be compared to miss Mass because you are sick or caring for the sick can be loosened t cover I am sick of going to Mass each week it is boring so i am going to take a mental health break this week and stay in bed.

I can steal from my employer because pencils don’t count and neither do personal calls.

My wife turned into a real shrew so i am going to marry again in a civil ceremony.

These are a bit stretched I admit but moral decay does not happen over night. Hitler and Stalin were not just like Mother Teresa and the POW they were evil. It is a gradual process. There are moral components to all aspects of our lives if you think about it.

The hammy may have to go but I am shocked by the flip comments about feeding him to various other animals. I expect a lot more from my fellow holy rollers. We are supposed to be good stewards of these animals. I am well aware that the world would not have ended if hammy was dog food yesterday by human design but what might be okay tomorrow. The soul is connected to the body. Death can be immediate for the body(maybe also for the soul reflecting on my abve thoughts) but basically it is a process. Little things mean a lot both for goodness and for badness.
 
Don’t invest in a lot of expensive hamster stuff if you plan on keeping him. Hamsters do not have a long life span.

My daughter had one as a child. He lived in an aquarium. She felt he needed sun, so unasked, she relocated his aquarium to the patio…in Texas…in summer. Aquariums? Glass? Sun? As I was talking on the phone, she came in screaming, bearing the stiff hamster on her hands.

Give him enough stuff to chew in the meantime. He shouldn’t last longer than a year.

You could take him for a drive in the country…yeh, a farm, a nice farm, with cats…
 
We had this same problem. Our hamsters are always kept in the bathroom on the back of the toilet. Each time you would go in to use the potty, the little bugar would attack the side of the cage. We called it Monster and each time my Son said that there were monsters in his closet we would correct him and tell him our Monster lived in the bathroom. Our Monster was to mean and would never allow another Monster into the house so all was well. We used a leather work glove to catch him with. I clean the cage once a week and knowone handle it other than that.
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Don’t invest in a lot of expensive hamster stuff if you plan on keeping him. Hamsters do not have a long life span.

My daughter had one as a child. He lived in an aquarium. She felt he needed sun, so unasked, she relocated his aquarium to the patio…in Texas…in summer. Aquariums? Glass? Sun? As I was talking on the phone, she came in screaming, bearing the stiff hamster on her hands.

Give him enough stuff to chew in the meantime. He shouldn’t last longer than a year.

You could take him for a drive in the country…yeh, a farm, a nice farm, with cats…
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I’ve had hampsters live to the age of 4!
 
Ours lived 2-1/2 years…Mathematically we spent about 1.25% more on a friggin’ RODENT than we did on ourselves during that period of time keeping the little fur-ball happy…And this critter did NOTHING to help his keepers - just stink and chew things.

Get your kids a dog. A “real” dog - bigger than a football, and of the “working-class” breeds.
A good dog will:
Greet you whole-body excited every day.
Protect you.
Protect your house.
Happily eat the same chow every day.
Want to play at a moment’s notice.
 
My husband is a modern-day St. Francis - he knows how to handle any sort of animal. We took in my older son’s miniature hamster when he couldn’t handle the biting any more. My husband made it a point to handle him right from the get-go. Yeah, she bit - and bit hard! But he kept on handling her month after month until she was able to come up to him and calmly walk into his hands. He got her so tame that even I was able to handle her.

If we did leave her alone for a while, if we tried to handle her again, she would start biting again. Preserverance always paid off, though - and not minding being bit…

She recently left us this week - found her in her cage Monday…RIP dear Pee-pee!:crying:
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
4 what? 😉 4 years, months, or days?

I’ve had better luck with cats, into their 20s. Years.

No, l did not feed them hamsters.
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4 years. I’m not a big hampster fan. We have lots of pets of all kinds, but no cats! When I was a kid, I had a cat that lived for 18 years, my next longest lived pet was a goldfish, 17 years. I have a snapping turtle now that my kids predict will outlive me, we’ve only had her about 5 years, since she was a little squirt, now she’s the size of a platter. So…sometimes I DO keep biting pets…but we don’t have the expectation of handling “Fluffy”, we treat our girl with respect!
 
dkoinzan said:
We had this same problem. Our hamsters are always kept in the bathroom on the back of the toilet. Each time you would go in to use the potty, the little bugar would attack the side of the cage. We called it Monster and each time my Son said that there were monsters in his closet we would correct him and tell him our Monster lived in the bathroom. Our Monster was to mean and would never allow another Monster into the house so all was well. We used a leather work glove to catch him with. I clean the cage once a week and knowone handle it other than that.
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Have you ever considered “accidentally” dropping him in the toilet during cleaning? 😃 Flush twice just in case.:eek:
 
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