And then there was one

Knerten died last night. She had been ill for a couple of weeks and it wasn't unexpected. I'm sure it was the best thing for her, poor little one. She will be missed.

Knerten takes a fall

She's a cutie, she is!

Food project: Saturday

Oh I'msohungry I'msohungry gimmefoods! I don't even have the time to climb properly into your hand I'msohungry I'll almost fall off!




Food to Knerten today: one piece of AllBran (below).


In the evening, she got a small taste of trilltrall's dinner. This is the first time she's had white bread.

Food project: Friday

So, you all saw that sad little picture of Knerten's food bowl last night, right? Well, it didn't look much better this morning. In fact, it was time for a refill.

Food items provided to Knerten Friday morning:

10 grams of hamster pellets

10 grams of broccoli

a little oats

She was even more excited to see me this morning than she was last night. She was basically running around in circles. I tried to film a little of how excited she was, sorry the video is so dark - poor Knerten, living in dark little corners.... Anyhoo, two-legs approaches!:



And just so we won't forget her, I filmed Fjerten a little too! :-)

Food project: Thursday

Knerten's food bowl when I got home from work this evening:

I guess she can be forgiven for not being incredibly happy with it. She was totally excited to see me, as two-legs finally = bringer-of-food in her tiny little brain. The hamster pellets that I feed these guys are supposed to prevent selective feeding, but that doesn't really happen. They both like to leave the brownish pellets behind. Anyway, Knerten isn't getting a refill until tomorrow - she needs to learn to eat brownish pellets!

She did get a small dose of oats, though. Poor, ravenous little beast:

Food project: Wednesday

She eats like a horse. Yesterday's mango is long gone, and so is the little piece of bread from Monday!

This morning she got a little rolled oats again:

Food project: Tuesday

Knerten needed a broccoli refill today.

So, Tuesday: 21 grams of broccoli.

I knew the 8 grams from Sunday wouldn't last very long. Broccoli seems to be Knerten's main source of fluids. She drinks much less water than Fjerten, but also eats a lot more broccoli.

This evening she also got a little mango. I rarely feed the little ones fruit, because of the high sugar content, but occasionally they do get a small taste:

Food project: Monday

Food added to Knerten's bowl today, Monday:

A piece of trilltrall's breakfast. ;-) Should give her something to chew on for 3-4 days.

This evening she also got some of trilltrall's cereal:

Which she didn't hesitate about at all:

Knerten being friendly

Today was cage cleaning day. As usual the beasts spent some time in the digging box while their cages were being cleaned. Knerten was her usual, friendly self.

Here's Knerten having some rolled oats:


Knerten in my hands:


Knerten having cereal:


Knerten in trilltrall's hand (we had to bribe her with AllBran!):

How much does a dwarf hamster eat??

I've mentioned before that I'm amazed at how much Knerten and Fjerten actually manage to eat. These are two small hamsters that weigh in at around 40 grams, if that. And they eat incredible amounts of food.

I decided I would record for a week how much the two of them actually eat. However, that turned out to be a bit of a hassle, so I'll settle for just recording Knerten's meals. They eat about the same, so...

This project started at 1pm today, Sunday November 8th. I cleaned their cages and then refilled their food bowls.

Today, Knerten got the following food items:

12 grams of hamster pellets
8 grams of broccoli
a little rolled oats
a little cereal
1 piece of Kellog's AllBran

My kitchen weight isn't sensitive enough to be able to tell me the gram weight of the oats, cereal and AllBran, so I have to settle for photos there. The silly weight just told me 0 grams.

So. This is the food provided to Knerten today, Sunday Nov. 8th:

Lovely Knerten

Of course I've not forgot about Knerten! She's her usual lovely self as this little video from last night shows. Sorry it's so dark, poor Knerten, living in a dark little corner of the house... Anyway, she sat in my hand like this for ages, I just couldn't film it all:



I'm glad she's well. She gave me a bit of a scare last week. I was cleaning her cage and suddenly noticed bloody footprints in her running wheel!! She never looked sick or anything, was eating as normal, no injuries to be seen, etc. So I Googled. And according to various sources, female dwarf hamsters can be prone to have vaginal bleeding for no apparent reason. Normally it's not necessary to take the animal to the wet and the bleeding will just stop on its own. There were some more bloody footprints the day after I'd cleaned her cage, but there's been nothing after that and she's still acting all normal. So I'll put it down to one of those inexplicable and harmless bleedings I read about.

Knerten is luvable!

Knerten is luvable! We've been away for a couple of days (spent a total of 3 hours in Germany on Thursday - no prizes for guessing where we've been!) and as usual I was wondering if the beasties had missed us at all.

Fjerten was nice and again almost climbed into my hand for her snacks. She didn't dare go all the way this time either, though, and I didn't have my camera handy, so...

Knerten has been asleep all day and didn't make an appearance until just now (9pm). When she did finally wake up, however, she was her usual friendly self as evidenced in video below:



There's hope for the little beasts yet! :-D

Dwarf hamster photography

trilltrall has been reading up on how to use his system camera, a Panasonic Lumix G1. He decided to test his new-found photography skills on the little beasties. They are notoroiously difficult to take pictures of, what with them never sitting still.

This is trilltrall's photo studio:
As you see, it's the "digging box" with an added white background for the occasion and a red rose in case the little beasts should decide that flowers are fun. Dear old Pearl quite enjoyed chewing on flowers. Turned out Knerten & Fjerten aren't much interested in flowers, though. Poor little ones, they don't know what they're missing.

The camera is on a tripod - a relatively new purchase, trilltrall got it when we were in Gothenburg. It's a Swedish tripod! Some extra light on the chair to the left and voila - neat little studio for dwarf hamster photography.

So, it turns out system cameras, unsurprisingly, are the right tools for taking pictures of Roborovkis. Crank up the ISO, fast shutter speed, apperture low... or so I'm told. ;-)

A few shots of the lovely Knerten:



There are also photos of the ever elusive Fjerten! Behold, Fjerten in all her glory:

She's a pretty little one, isn't she? Too bad she's so shy.

Knerten being friendly

Knerten is being a darling these days; very friendly and all. The last couple of days she has taken to climbing up my arm when she gets her evening snack. Of course I haven't filmed any of those occasions.... until today. :-D Obviously she didn't climb quite as much when I had my camera ready, but at least a little:



She's such a sweetie!

Lovely Knerten

Happy. =) We've been away for the past 3 weekends and I was worried the animals had forgot what little I might have managed to hammer into their little heads. However, Knerten was nice and friendly tonight and came to fetch cereal from my hand no problemo. She's a sweetie, she is! (Fjerten, however, is still useless...)

Frustrating little buggers!!

So. The taming project continues to bomb.

Yesterday it was time to clean cages again and I figured it would be another good opportunity to get some footage + get the dwarfs used to being handled.

Got off to a bad start: I mistakenly assumed Knerten was asleep in her house and so just placed her house in the digging box. Then proceeded the take her cage apart so I could clean it, only to discover that she wasn't in fact in her house. Turned out she had been asleep in the cage, in a little nest she'd made for herself. Of course she freaked out completely when my removing her roof woke her up. I had to make a grab for her before she leapt out on the floor. She wasn't happy. Then she came out of her house to find snacks only once while in the digging box. At that point I picked her up again and she shrieeeekkked. The way only Fjerten has done before. *sigh* I think this project is doomed!! And are dwarf hamsters really supposed to make that screeching sound??

I didn't get any footage of Knerten in the box yesterday at all. Here she is after I'd cleaned her cage, having a sand bath. She was acting so weird, just sitting there doing nothing for a while. Don't think it really shows in the video, though.



She also did a great deal of running last night.



Fjerten wasn't any better, but at least she made a little bit of an appearance while in the box:



I'm tempted to give up the taming project...

Taming of Knerten

...not going so well, actually.

This is Knerten from last night, jumping off of my hand after gobbling up a few pieces of cereal.



On Saturday she was all nice & smiles & whatnot, and I even lifted her out of her cage and my friend Leisha Camden even got to pet her a tiny little bit. No such happy feelings yesterday, as you see.

Ah well. Things take time.

Cleaning

I love the smell of hamster urine in the morning.

We've had a heatwave here in Oslo for two weeks. Yesterday we hit an all time high of +33 C. Officially. That's hot.

A consequence of which has been that the hamster cages have, well, stunk. Which they normally don't. It's not that long since last time I cleaned their cages, but I just had to get rid of the lovely scent of dwarf hamster pee.

As usual, the little ones got the chance to run aound a little in the digging box. Here is Knerten being her adorable self, eating rolled oats out of trilltrall's hand:


And here she is showing off how big she is!

Knerten - Phase 2

We are now ready for Phase 2 of the taming of Knerten. Things are progressing quite nicely. Food is always a nice incentive with these guys, and today's snack was a little bit of trilltrall's (non-sugary) cereal.

I'm currently working on getting Knerten to climb all the way into my hand and, the important bit, to stay there even though I move my hand. The long-term goal is to be able to lift her without her freaking out. Eventually, maybe, even out of her cage...

But that is some way off yet. This is Knerten in my hand today, I was able to deposit her on top of that little nest by my hand there, although perhaps it was her running off of my hand more than it was me actually putting her down. The video is a little dark because of the location of Knerten's cage - I end up getting in the way of the light whenever I reach into her cage. Next time I want to film her, maybe I should move the cage first so the light falls from a different angle. Anyway, behold:

Not bad, eh?? =)

Knerten exploring

Knerten also did some exploring in the dirt:

Awwww, she's a cutie! :-D