Last night I discovered to my horror that Vingdragon had a bit of tangled fur! Oh no! After some advice from a Facebook group, I grabbed my smallest scissors, bribed him with a juicy snack and set to work:
Scissors have done their job and all looks well:
On this Facebook group people also recommended changing his bedding to Carefresh Crinkles and brushing him with a toothbrush if he would tolerate it, to prevent future tangles. Promptly ordered Crinkles online and bought a toothbrush today.
Will be interesting to see what he thinks about the toothbrush when he isn't getting bribed with a big piece of red bell pepper. :-)
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!
I normally get up for work at 5.30am on weekdays. I know it's insane. But Vingdragån is awake and kicking at that time of morning, which is great! I had him out of his cage yesterday morning, and this morning he was practically jumping up & down waiting to get out. He still didn't want me to lift him out of the cage, but he was more than ready to climb out on his own. Maybe I should start getting up 15 minutes earlier, so I really have time for him in the morning.... I'll have a think about that! ;-)
On the sofa this morning (kinda hard to handle the phone with one hand and hamster with the other at, did I mention that, 5.30 in the morning!):
He was so easy to deal with this morning, which is strange since he was a total scardycat last night and ran away when I approached his cage. Guess he's just more sociable at 5.30am than 8pm.
This evening he climbed onto his roof after hearing rumors of broccoli. He got some broccoli and allowed me to catch him without too many protests for a little taming session in the hamster-proof bathroom.
Yesterday I filmed Vingdragån taking a piece of carrot from my fingers. Just now he got up in the middle of the day - I heard he was having a snack and offered him more carrot, he came up to get it. In the middle of the day. :-) Next step - making him climb into my hand to fetch it.
I picked up Min dyreverdens Merkur in Oslo today, and promptly renamed him Vingdragån!
He seems so calm! Not a worry in the world. I'm sure we'll become friends quickly! He'll have a day or two to get used to his new surroundings first, though.
These pictures are from last night. He's better again now, I think, so I don't know what's going on…
He seems as healthy as he's ever been, eating his new food and drinking his vitamin-enhanced water. Still a little less hairy in the neck area than elsewhere, but not as bad as two weeks ago.
So I'm not too thrilled about this. Tonight I had the impression that Lada's neck has gotten worse again. It is really hard to tell, but it seemed to me like his neck fur is thinner again.
Tonight's picture:
Of course he is leaning forwards in this photo, so it's more obvious then. But even with that taken into consideration…
I will not be terribly surprised if there's another trip to the vet in the not-too-distant future.
You can still see that his fur isn't entirely normal in the neck area. But he still hasn't got any worse, so I guess maybe the new food and the vitamin supplements are helping.
Unless he turns up hairless some evening soon… It happened very suddenly last time, so might do so again!
I weighed Lada tonight, to see how he's getting on with the Oxbow Essentials food. Tonight he only weighed 96 grams. That's 10 grams down from the 104 he clocked a month ago (June 6).
Apparently, though, it's normal for a hamster's weight to fluctuate with as much as 1-12 grams, so I don't really worry yet. I only worry about the fact that he's so small, but I guess he's just built that way.
In the top and bottom photos you can kind of make out a circle in the fur on his neck. This is the area where he went bald before. It's getting hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for, so I would definitely say he's getting better.
Looks like the vitamins in his drinking water is helping. He hasn't eaten a lot of the new food yet, he is getting a mix of old and new and seems to prefer the old. But it'll still be a couple of weeks before his feed is completely changed over.
I just took this photo of Lada's neck. Look closely and you can see a circle covering his neck where his fur is a little different.
I can't tell whether it's the same, a little worse or a little better than before his last vet appointment. Will be keeping a close eye on his neck for the next couple of weeks.
Last night I realized that Lada's neck fur is getting thin again. I called the vet this morning and got an appointment for 9am tomorrow. So Lada will be off to the vet again. Looks like the mites are back. It's not very obvious yet, but definitely the case, I think.
This is Lada tonight. His fur is definitely getting thinner in the same area as before.
Damn it. He looked so good. I had really hoped he didn't have chronic bad immune system, but it's starting to look like he does.
Whenever
Lada actually gets up at night before I go to bed, he always gets to run around
in his little hamster ball, usually for 20-60 minutes depending on how late it
is. He also gets 15 minutes of free range time in the guest bathroom, which is
the only room in the house with no cables, no big furniture to hide under, etc.
When
running around free like that, he always starts by scent marking the same
corner of the room. Always. The same corner. And then he runs around for a bit
until he gets tired of it and climbs back into his hamster ball.
I have been
trying for ages to get this on film! He normally runs around for 5-15 minutes
and then climbs into his ball. For some reason it has been hard to get on video!
But last night, finally, finally…!
Take 1:
No, wanted to run around some more.
Take 2:
Nope, not done yet.
Take 3:
Having a little climb on two-legs, not ready for ball yet!
Take 4:
Enough of this, let me out into the rest of the flat again! :-)
I finally weighed Lada today. He weighs 104 grams. He came to live here 4 months ago today, more or less, and was 5 weeks old at the time, which makes him… just shy of 5,5 months old today. Apparently they are usually fully grown at around 6 months old.
He seems so small compared to Tanita!! Tiny little big-ears. :-)
