I get up at the crack of dawn, so of course I also go to bed pretty early (according to most people, 10pm is early! Who knew?! :-) ). Yesterday I got home a lot later than normal, so stayed up longer than I usually do on a work night. And Vingdragån was all smiles and super sociable and couldn't wait to get out of his cage! He came running to me when I talked to him, instead of hiding in his house. He still doesn't like when you actively grab him, but he was happy to climb into my hands to be lifted out of the cage. He had a run in the sofa first, and then in the hamster proof bathroom. There is video!
Eating carrot on the roof of his house.
Still eating carrot. Towards the end of this video, you can really see silver highlights in his coat! I know that Black hamsters' long fur is grey, not black, but here it really does look like Vingdragån might be Silver-Black.
A few tumbles in the bathroom as well:
And I just had to include this. I was worried he'd be stuck there forever!:
This morning he was also very sociable and more than happy to climb out of his cage to get some running around in the sofa done.
Right now things are looking quite good taming-wise!
It seems Fjerten has finally recovered from the shock of the Great Escape. She's been climbing into my hand again for her morning snack this week. Here she is this morning:
Fjerten wasn't in a friendly mood today, though. Here are a few videos of her. She wasn't having any 'climbing into two-legs' hands' or anything today, oh no!
Fjerten:
Again:
Scary two-legs:
*sigh* What can you do. It'll be a while yet before she's as tame as Knerten.
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!):
Today I had my camera handy from the get-go and caught Fjerten on film climbing up her cage to get at her morning snack! You hardly ever see her climb, but lately she's been doing this when I approach her cage in the morning. Good old Pearl used to climb (and fall down) all the time.
Oh well. How about this:
She still has a tendency to nibble my fingers, but I suppose she'll stop eventually, like Knerten did. Fjerten is just... a little slower on the uptake. ;-)
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.
She's all kinds of brave these days. :-) The camera spooked her at one point, but that's to be expected.
She approaches when I walk into the living room in the morning. Wanting her snack. Aw, she's so cute! Not quite as calm as Knerten yet, but better. Ever better.
Yeah, so, there's this taming project with these dwarf hamsters, right? And there's this one shy one, called Fjerten. Two-legs are so scaryscary and she generally runs and hides at the first hint of a two-legs nearby.
But NOT TODAY! Today Fjerten actually climbed all the way into my hand. Only for a second, but still. =) And she didn't bite. The little beast actually bit me the other day hard enough that it hurt. I suppose she wanted more cereal... But not today. Today she was all smiles and loveliness and whatnot. Watch:
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:
We're somewhat preoccupied with Knerten here at Knerten & Fjerten, for the simple reason that Knerten is the 'people person' (ehr... people hamster...) of the two.
Today however I managed to catch Fjerten on video while on her best behaviour. This is about as sociable as she gets. The trick is to make absolutely no sudden movements and offer plenty of trilltrall's cereal:
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:
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:
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.
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:
