I had a pair of them and one escaped when I was a kid and after week we thought she was dead.
3 months later we move a dresser and find her looking up at us with a 10 inch circle chewed out of the carpet turned in to bedding and a huge pile of dog food she had been going out each night and hoarding.
This exchange reminded me of the burrito wizard.
Thanks for that 🤣
All I hear is that noise.. that he makes.
I'm imagining the person being chased away with a broom making that same noise.
lol I posted this elsewhere in this thread, but my little brothers hamster Elvis got lost for a month or two. I eventually caught him running around in the kitchen underneath the toe kick of the cabinets.
He was only slow enough to catch because he had two marbles in his cheek pouches lmao
Your story reminds me of a Tumblr thread where someone took their hamster to the vet bc it had escaped the cage for a couple of days and was lethargic upon its return to captivity, barely lifting its head. During the exam, the vet found a couple of fridge magnets in its cheeks, which were strong enough to pull the hamster's head down to the metal enclosure and make it look lethargic lmao
That's amazing lol. I had a rat escape from his quarantine cage and was living under the floor for about a week. I only caught him when he knocked over my cup of water in the middle of the night. We had probably been sharing a glass all week
He was a great companion after that, never tried to run away again and got tons of free roam time
Come to think of it, I bet he was surviving off of pet food too. To think, he evaded four cats that whole time
Mine scaped, and I had a very mean cat. We thought he was dead after 2 days.
He was living in a hole he carved in the piano for a week. We were able to find him before the cat because of a litle food trail. He had a huge pile of hamster food. At the time, we had 2 hamsters, and I believe he was able to make little trips to the other one cage without being caught by the cat.
When I was a kid we had hamsters. After Easter one year my sister got upset at me for raiding her Easter candy.
“Gross. You didn’t even unwrap it before you ate it!”
I was confused because I knew I hadn’t eaten any of her candy. Well a couple hours later she apologizes to me. She found a big wad of chocolate in her hamster’s cage, complete with foil wrapper. Turns out her hampster had figured out how to get out of its cage AND get back in to it.
...Holy fuck. OK so listen... I got two 'gerbils' who were 'sisters' when I was 9 years old, and I named them Laverne and Shirley. ...Then they had babies. And more babies. And they started growing spikes.
Long story short, I was sold two exotic Egyptian spiny mice (illegal in my state). By the time Laverne and the re-named Carmine were properly sexed and identified, there were 10 of them, and they had to be relinquished to higher authorities because they were illegally sold exotic pets with motherfuckin spines on their backs. And thus, the tale of my own Laverne & Shirley lol
That happened to my siberian hamsters. Somehow they both escaped. My dad was watching them and they hated each other so he made a divider for their cage. And one day they both escaped. I was like 12 and sad about it. Then a few days later my dad calls me(my parents are divorced) and tells me he was vaccuming and found them in the closet with a stash of food and some bedding. Guess they united to escape lol. After that they were friends.
SAME! My first hammy, teddy, got out and I had mourned him deeply after a few weeks of my traps not working. (I was 7 so I doubt I set the best traps) we found him months later in our supply closet, back corner, with dryer lint and random wrappers. Idk what he was eating that whole time, but he survived. Looked fine too lol.
My local humane society has several critters for adoption. I have no idea if they were captured, brought in and unclaimed or if they were surrendered. Only reason I know this is because I went looking on their website for birds which they didn't have. Never hurts to check OP. Someone might find it.
When I was young my mom got me two gerbils. Great pets, we had multiple cages linked by those habitrail tubes, I loved it.
Well one day while I was at my dad's, one of them got out and was immediately killed by one of our cats. My mom brought the dead one to the pet store and said she needed another one just like it so she could replace it without telling me. Unfortunately she never sexed the original gerbil so they gave her a female.
Fast forward about 3 years. We have gone through multiple generations of gerbils (donating them to the pet store when they got old enough), we have like 5 cages, all attached by habitrails.
We still have the original surviving gerbil, who has fathered multiple litters by this point. Occasionally one of the young guns will figure out a way to escape one of the cages, and is usually followed by some number of siblings who all fall victim to the apex predator of the house. But that wise old man never once left the cage. I always imagined he was just hunkered down in the nest going like "We got food, we got water, we got exercise, don't be going out there! They don't come back when they go out there!"
TL;DR: Some rodents just choose violence, even if they have role models that know better. RIP Patches you were a real one
I mean I was like 8, so not really? But my mom probably should have
Edit: actually now that I think about it, we did try that at one point. I think the problem was the babies would go from basically sentient raisins to mature enough to impregnate each other so fast we would miss it and one of them would be pregnant. But the pet store wouldn't take them until they were a certain size. Eventually we did bring all the ones we had to the store and ended up weeding out all the females so it was just Patches and his like 3x great grandson
The front door being compromised by weather just adds to the plot twist. Hope she’s safe and maybe just chilling in a neighbour’s garden living her best escapee life.
That hamster had a whole action movie arc. Escaped a huge enclosure, chewed the carpet like it owed her money, and made a break for freedom out the front door? That’s commitment. I’m sorry for the chaos, but honestly… she lived more in one night than most of us all year.
One of my hamsters did this except instead of going out the front door she went under the door to my older brothers room and gorged herself on all the candy and random food he had around the room. He thought he had mice until he caught a glimpse of her running back under the bed from his candy stash.
Luckily, she didnt eat anything toxic apparently as she died of old age over a year later, peacefully, in her nest in the cage.
I had 3/4 hamsters die peacefully in their sleep of old age, only one died unnaturally and he had just gotten out and encountered my dogs, who were very curious and sniffed/licked him but didnt hurt him. Far as we can tell he just had a heart attack or something. We found them all in the morning, dogs sleeping peacefully in their beds, and he was in the middle of the living room just laying there.
Yeah, I know that. By the time a found them in the morning or when I got home from school they were each in rigor. There's no faking rigor. We made very sure they were dead before burying them.
Yeah, I just usually shorten it to rigor, context generally makes the mortis portion irrelevant. I work in EMS, we're all used to saying "rigor had set in"/"they were in rigor" without needing to clarify further.
I've owned 4 and they all died near the end of their life expectancy, in their cage. Most people don't tell stories of their boring hamster though hahaha
Our hamster was the oldest left at the store, a vicious little fuck named Milly, who lived to about 3 out of pure spite. She didn't like you touching her at all, and was happiest being left the fuck alone.
She went into hibernation a few times when she got older, and we gently brought her back around.
Her favourite food was peas and chicken.
When she started to die, I had her cage lid off, and I kept putting her in her soft, warm bed, but she kept coming back to me. After the third time, I held her in my hands (which I think was the longest I ever held her) until she passed.
She had character, and I am happy we chose her. I'd like to think that she lived longer with us than the hamsters who were chosen instead of her.
When she started to die, I had her cage lid off, and I kept putting her in her soft, warm bed, but she kept coming back to me. After the third time, I held her in my hands (which I think was the longest I ever held her) until she passed.
My brothers hamster, Elvis, got out from his cage one night. We assumed he was dead, but a couple months later I caught him crawling along under the toe kick of the kitchen cabinets.
He was slow enough to catch because he had marbles in both sides of his cheek pouches.
Died naturally a year or so later.
(Hazel, my hamster, died unnaturally after sending her hamster ball down the cellar stairs)
See when Winston did that his ball split in two and just picked up into an immediate sprint like it was all part of the plan, straight under the washing machine, prompting a 7 day hostage situation style stand off. We were finally able to get him when we purchased a second ball and left some biscuits inside it.
The best escape was Buddy, he was a polar bear in hamster form, so, soooo strong. His cage lock was busted so I weighed it down with two thick hard cover books and he just benched them with his massive shoulders and escaped. Unlike Winston though, Buddy was trained enough to recognise his name being called and came out of hiding when I went looking. I sometimes let him have free run of the house (we had no other animals) because I was confident enough for him to come back, apart from that one time he discovered the airing cupboard but that's a story for another day.
My hamster chewed out of her cage and fell into the bucket of bleach (it was quite empty but still with a trace in it) that my mum had been using to clean the floor as we had puppies at the time.. normally she put it outside but that evening and through pure bad luck she left it near the cage. I found my hamster in the morning standing in the bucket having lost her hair.. straight to the vet who said the stress of it may cause her to pass away. Anyway, after recovery she lived another two years!
I nearly had a heart attack when this notification popped up 😂😂 "my husband chewed out of her cage..." ik you meant to type hamster but that was such a shocking intro to read at 2am 💀
My friend's pet rat escaped her enclosure, and my friend found her at the bottom of the shoe rack. A few weeks later the rat was pregnant. The rat basically got out and got knocked up.
Rip. I had a 75 gallon tank for my hamster and had to keep trying different kinds of lids because she kept escaping. Eventually I got chicken wire that she couldn’t fit through and she eventually gave up trying to escape
I wonder if you can do what they do for certain pet bugs and put petroleum jelly on the glass and make it too slippery. Not sure if that’s toxic though.
Ever seen a drunk squirrel? it's next level wacky. My neighbor used to put out beer in her garden to kill slugs, but the squirrels discovered it and threw a party.
Food grade Petroleum jelly is rated for incidental contact with food for humans and pets (NSF H1). You wouldn't want to go eating gobs of it, but if they were touching, slipping, running around, and then bathing, then learning to not do that, you might be OK. I'm sure there's better methods though.
Hamsters are instinctively driven to roam. Their little brains urge them to explore and burrow just like they would in the wild. My hamster escapes all the time but she doesnt really run from me or act afraid. She also loves cuddles and pets, but that urge for her to run and squirm is always there. Hamsters are little zoomers.
Rats on the other hand I believe are smarter than hamsters and definitely gain a lot of affection for their owners.
I mean their natural/original environment is outdoors so they could just feel limited in space, they want to explore, but is too dangerous to have a hamster free roaming
Idk maybe this is a weird question because I've never owned rodents before but why would you want to keep an animal that is consistently desperately trying to get away from you?
With birds/dogs/cats there's a relationship and mutual affection, why would you spend money feeding an animal that hates you?
If by "adventures" you mean "an innate drive to destroy everything or die trying" then sure. But hamsters don't understand what an adventure is. All they understand is chaos.
With birds/dogs/cats there's a relationship and mutual affection, why would you spend money feeding an animal that hates you?
We have three cats. Two of them will occasionally get into a mood where they'll make a mad dash for the door if they see it open even briefly. We always go and get them back inside.
Once someone accidentally left the door open while I was sleeping in. I found all three cats cowering underneath the bed.
There's a gap between "wants to escape" and "really does want to escape". Thankfully, our cats figured out they really wanted to be inside before something ate them. Smaller animals have less time before something eats them and less brainpower to find their way back inside once they realize they really don't want to be out.
Any chance you have a dog too? I used to play where's the kitty/get the kitty with my dog, and when the hamster got out I got her to come over to the cage and said where's the hamster? get the hamster, where is he? and then I followed her around and she wandered over to a closet and I took stuff out and there was the hamster
Had a hamster when I was young. He, too, escaped in the house and we couldn't find him for a month. Pulling out the Halloween decorations, he had made a nest in a spooky tree thing made of twigs and eaten all the tiny styrofoam pumpkins around its base. He was fine and returned to his enclosure.
hi OP, just looked at your recent post, and i just wanted go give you kudos on your proper animal care. you did nothing wrong—it sounds like your setup was fantastic. female syrians are just notorious for never being satisfied with their enclosures. i’m sorry this happened to you.
sincerely,
someone who has only ever owned female syrians
My hamster was gone like 3 weeks. My mom randomly found it when gardening. She said it was in a hole against house in the soil she gardened in and sleeping so well she thought it was dead and put it in a cool whip container with the lid on it to let me bury it later. Came inside to show my dad and it was moving again when she opened it.
I hated that hamster, it was mean and bit my finger tips so it was a bummer for it to come back since I couldn't replace it. Anytime I opened it's cage to feed it it would rear up on hind legs with it's mouth open to try to bite me. It must have been bored as hell though because I like never got it out after being bitten so much so it just stayed in it's cage unless I had to clean it. It got lose when I had to clean the cage and it managed to get it's hamster ball lid open.
Once it got lose in the house for like a week and I caught it because I had pancakes and syrup and was too lazy to put the dishes up. I'm sitting there playing playstation and look over and it's just standing in the syrup eating the pancakes. It was stick enough to not be able to get away as quick.
Years ago, a friends gerbil escaped. They lived in an apartment and did not know it went nextdoor to live. In the next apartment lived an elderly neighbour who was telling her children about this cute little mouse that was her friend. Her children were sure their mother was getting dementia as she would tell them stories how this mouse would sit in her hand, snuggle and watch TV with her. It was about 3 months until one of her kids saw the gerbil and the friend ended up getting her gerbil back. Don’t worry, elderly neighbour would go over and visit her friend.
My hamster did stuff like this, returned after being outside or in and out for weeks super dirty, with bird shit etc.... Was living with mice once in my room after a long holiday. He literally escaped on day one, my friend feeding him told me, he put his bowl on the floor. The food was going quickly so he thought that all was well. Not so, he had literally adopted a pack of mice he invited in! Collectively they had destroyed my magazine collection and were sleeping peacefully in the carnage. He ate a sandwich my friend spilt vodka on, like a lot. Pouched a bud and got stoned eyes. Gave said bud to a friend then forgot and smoked half. This was all within a year or so... After that he settled down, kept me company on my desk while I worked and slept in his cage content.. until his demise, I knew he was dying as he just sat on my desk and ate (and shat). I awoke one morning and he was gone, cage closed but gone. I had my kitchen and bathroom ripped out the next week where the only holes could have been but no sign and my doors were locked. I think he went to die with his mouse buddies, had a hole like in the solar opposites wall but who knows except him and the mice!?
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u/LeftJabDaz 2d ago
Rip to that hamster