Snowy

[spoon]

Snowy is my first hamster. She is a hybrid dwarf (with strong winter white traits) who I estimate to be about 17 months old. I adopted her nearly a year ago from a home where she was being kept in a tiny cage with just a little house, some plastic tubing and a sprinkling of bedding, not even a wheel. I moved her into a maxi duna and she took to burrowing and zooming on her wheel immediately. Unfortunately at the start of the year she fell ill and I think she had a stroke. She has recovered pretty well but has some lingering neurological symptoms, she gets easily disorientated, spins sometimes and is generally unsteady on her feet. I moved her into a smaller enclosure with a large flat shelf to make it easier for her to get about and she seems pretty happy in there. She used to only ever come out late evening when the room was dimly lit and be active at night but now she pops out for a waddle around whenever she feels like it. She has never been much interested in social interaction, she is very good with handling and will sit in hands for brief pettings but would much rather be left to go about her hamstery business by herself. I enjoy caring for her a lot and hope she still has a good few months left before age catches up with her.

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[Redkitkats17]

Snowy is my first hamster. She is a hybrid dwarf (with strong winter white traits) who I estimate to be about 17 months old. I adopted her nearly a year ago from a home where she was being kept in a tiny cage with just a little house, some plastic tubing and a sprinkling of bedding, not even a wheel. I moved her into a maxi duna and she took to burrowing and zooming on her wheel immediately. Unfortunately at the start of the year she fell ill and I think she had a stroke. She has recovered pretty well but has some lingering neurological symptoms, she gets easily disorientated, spins sometimes and is generally unsteady on her feet. I moved her into a smaller enclosure with a large flat shelf to make it easier for her to get about and she seems pretty happy in there. She used to only ever come out late evening when the room was dimly lit and be active at night but now she pops out for a waddle around whenever she feels like it. She has never been much interested in social interaction, she is very good with handling and will sit in hands for brief pettings but would much rather be left to go about her hamstery business by herself. I enjoy caring for her a lot and hope she still has a good few months left before age catches up with her.
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she is so adorable!
and also welcome to hamster clubhouse <3
hope to see you around!

[HamstersAreMyLife]

Welcome!! She is precious!

[TinyPaws]

Welcome to The Hamster Clubhouse! Snowy is adorable!

[CallaTheHam]

snowy's adorable!

[spoon]

Snowy had a 21cm Bucatstate wheel but had completely stopped using it. Keeping it in her enclosure restricted bedding depth at one end because she'd keep jamming the wheel with bedding every night. I decided it'd be far better to remove the wheel and provide better bedding depth across the whole enclosure since creating burrows is her favourite activity. I've given her another platform and put a small flying saucer on it in case she decides she might want to try having a slow waddle on it but I doubt she'll bother with it. The usual risks with saucers don't really apply when there's no chance of her getting flung off and she'd only use it for a few minutes at most. I'll probably end up removing the saucer and putting something else more to her liking there instead.
A little video of her exploring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfHXQ6ioRLE

[Kikya]

Snowy is my first hamster. She is a hybrid dwarf (with strong winter white traits) who I estimate to be about 17 months old. I adopted her nearly a year ago from a home where she was being kept in a tiny cage with just a little house, some plastic tubing and a sprinkling of bedding, not even a wheel. I moved her into a maxi duna and she took to burrowing and zooming on her wheel immediately. Unfortunately at the start of the year she fell ill and I think she had a stroke. She has recovered pretty well but has some lingering neurological symptoms, she gets easily disorientated, spins sometimes and is generally unsteady on her feet. I moved her into a smaller enclosure with a large flat shelf to make it easier for her to get about and she seems pretty happy in there. She used to only ever come out late evening when the room was dimly lit and be active at night but now she pops out for a waddle around whenever she feels like it. She has never been much interested in social interaction, she is very good with handling and will sit in hands for brief pettings but would much rather be left to go about her hamstery business by herself. I enjoy caring for her a lot and hope she still has a good few months left before age catches up with her.
IMG_20230329_154906~2_copy_632x506.jpg

Such a lucky hammy! I also try to adopt or rescue older hams that are in small cages and let them live out a good retirement life.

I feel like care of elderly hamsters needs to be better documented on things we can do to help make them comfortable.

[spoon]

I haven't been very active here but an update on Snowy.

Due to continuing declining health I have decided to have Snowy put to sleep in a couple of weeks time. It's no one thing, just a combination of age related issues on top of her stroke have led me to conclude that her quality of life isn't all that good anymore. I'm giving her as many tasty seeds, herb bars and whimzees as she likes and she won't need anymore pouch checks, nail clippings or cage cleanings before her appointment at the vet, so gets to have the remainer of her life as pleasurable and low stress as possible.

A couple of my rats are getting very old now and I'm wanting to spend as much time with them as possible while they're still around so don't plan on getting another hamster for a while at least, so am going to have to stare at the empty space where her enclosure sits. Snowy was never much into cuddles but used to love a zoom around the floor before her stroke. Since her stroke though I mainly left her be as she stresses so easily. I've been lucky that she has been coming out a lot in the day though so I get to see her going about her hamstery life a lot. It makes me sad that between being kept in inadequate care before coming to me and having a stroke she only had about 9 months of being a healthy active hamster, but I did the best for her that I could and I hope she was largely happy with life...

[Arora]

I'm so sorry to hear this news about Snowy..I know this is a very difficult time for you...

I definitely believe she has had the best caregiver and all the love possible for a lil ham..wishing you both love and virtual hugs in this hard time =,(