wow!!! i have a hamster that loves to escape so we end up taping up the sides – quite the Houdini!!

Hi Arathrael, great hammie home! Don’t forget the Siberian Winter Whites too – my two sapphire dwarf brothers co-exist happily together.

The new Habitrail range of tubes can be taken apart to clean quite easily, though when you have dozens of tubes like I do, it’s a fair bit of work still…

HEY,IT’S A SUPER CONDO HIGHRISE.WONDER WHAT THE RENT IS

Hey thanks for the info on banded hamsters, and apologies for doubting his ‘hamsterness’; we don’t have them at all in Oz so I am woefully ignorant about these little creatures…I’ve only ever seen the much more stubby ones online (if you know what I mean) which is why I thought he was a mouse .

This reminds me of the wonderful book Microserfs by Douglas Coupland – remember when he had the giant hamster setup that went all the way around the office?

Looks way too steep in some places. Don’t let the little buggers get hurt.

Arathrael — whoa, thanks for the epic follow-up!

Best of luck with the new place. And please, feel free to set up a webcam (a la UStream, like with the Shiba pups) once you get a new ham situated.

“Tell me there’s maid service, Rob F.”

More of a butler service.

“That would not be fun to clean.”

Cleaning it isn’t actually that bad. I have a few spare tube endings, so I can just remove and clean one section at a time, closing the rest off. And hamsters tend to use the same area for a toilet, so I can clean that area more often than the rest. It’s still only one hamster’s worth of mess after all.

“It’s a scale model of the internets! A series of tubes!”

Hiro liked blocking the tubes.

“Ahem, excuse me, but I think that sweet creature is actually a mouse”

Nope, Hiro was definitely a short-haired syrian hamster and not a mouse. You can see his stub of a tail in a few of the photos if you don’t believe me!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arathrael/2217811430
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arathrael/2299185294

“Hiro needs a couple of hammie pals. He’s lonely, I can tell…”

He wasn’t! As a few people have mentioned, syrian hamsters are solitary critters by nature. They’re very territorial by nature and will eventually fight if not separated. Some people have kept them together, but doing so is taking a huge risk, and doesn’t make them happier – if anything it will cause them extra stress.

Some of the dwarf species of hamster can live together though – Russian Campbell hamsters and Roborovski hamsters.

“I read on their site that the hammy pictured named Hiro died at the age of 9mo from a tumor”

Yes, he did. But he had a good life while he was with us, and it’s great to see his photos still getting attention! I haven’t got another hamster to occupy the ‘hamshion’ yet – I’ve since moved house and I haven’t worked out where to fit it yet! But I do plan to have a new occupant in there soon…

1. Syrian hamsters cannot be kept together. They mate only when the female is in season and then he makes tracks.

2. Those tubes are a PITA to clean, and put back together. And the plastic collects ammonia smell like you would not BELIEVE.

Ham Hefner needs playmates!