Rest Peacefully Rory

Two years and three days ago I drove over an hour away to adopt two lovely roborovski dwarf hamsters from a girl that got surprised with babies from hamsters that she had received as a present. I remember being surprised at just how small they really were, never having seen robos before. It took me almost 10 minutes to get both of them out of their cage and into the travel cage. They had a long ride to their new home, but settled in well. Rory was always the braver of the two, even though she was quite dependent on Bones. She often didn't mind me handling her for short periods of time and was usually the most cooperative with photo shoots.
Once I found both of them in "hibernation" due to the lack of heat in my room mid-winter. It was the longest amount of time I was ever able to hold them as I warmed them in my hands. Rory came around first, nudging her sister until she woke too.
After having them for about a year I was itching to give these girls a bigger home. They were upgraded to a Detolf cage (a cage built from a detolf shelf from ikea). Rory's favourite pastime (when she could reach it), was hanging upside down from the lid and chewing on the mesh in order to get my attention. Today I found her dead, buried in their aspen. She looked quite peaceful.

Rory and Bones may as well have been attached at the hips. No full memory exists of one without the other. Bones is taking it rather well though. She is eating, drinking and running around just fine and she looks healthy as can be. We are both going to miss Rory, but I am glad that she stuck around as long as she did.










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Rest In Peace Rory.
Adopted April 23, 2010 -- Passed April 28, 2012

Update on Star Gazing Treatment

I put together an article about 'Star Gazing' in hamsters (found here: Star Gazing) back in December 2011 and I wanted to update on a couple of things in regard to it.

On the forum, 'HamsterHideout' a member under the username of 'Luci' began treatment of her star gazing hamster, Mirabelle, with the drug Trimethoprim Sulfa (mentioned in the original article) and within days reported a noticeable difference in Mirabelle, namely walking normally and capable of better balance. Mirabelle has since passed away, though as far as I know, her death is not believed to be caused from the drug. 

The member, 'missPixy' also mentioned recently that some people have noticed that switching from tap water to bottled water has made a notable difference in the extremity of the symptoms associated with star gazing. I have no evidence to back this up, but it is certainly not something that would be of harm to try.

On a side note: I hope to become more active now that school is out, I am still working on a nutrition article though it may be awhile. In the meantime any suggestions for any thing that I should cover would not be unwelcome. Happy Hamstering and I hope everyone had a wonderful Hamster Day on April 12!