This is why I got a hamster, instead of rats. They LIKE being alone.
And SO MANY HAMSTER CAGES you buy in pet stores, recommended by pet store employees are WAY too small for them. So many of the wheels you can get for them are too small and give them back problems. If you buy something retail for a rodent, get the thing for a one size bigger rodent! Some of the things PetSmart markets for Syrian hamsters for instance are criminally small, enough to amount to cruelty.
But taking my hamster and putting him in the wild would be like taking a dude who lives in a five bedroom condo with a private swimming pool and an indoor gym and free door dash twice a day and sending him to live in a cave in the woods and telling him he should be grateful he gets to live free, the way he was meant to.
EDIT: Also… fuck hamster balls. Hamster’s have very very poor vision, so they can’t really see anything outside the ball. They’re rolling around in a confusing environment with very poor ability to gauge the outside world. If you put a hamster in one of these, you have no idea if it’s freaking out or stressed out or having a good time… but it IS rolling around in absolute ignorance of where it’s going or what it’s bumping into and if you pick it up and move it around it has very little understanding of what’s happening.
This is why I got a hamster, instead of rats. They LIKE being alone.
And SO MANY HAMSTER CAGES you buy in pet stores, recommended by pet store employees are WAY too small for them. So many of the wheels you can get for them are too small and give them back problems. If you buy something retail for a rodent, get the thing for a one size bigger rodent! Some of the things PetSmart markets for Syrian hamsters for instance are criminally small, enough to amount to cruelty.
But taking my hamster and putting him in the wild would be like taking a dude who lives in a five bedroom condo with a private swimming pool and an indoor gym and free door dash twice a day and sending him to live in a cave in the woods and telling him he should be grateful he gets to live free, the way he was meant to.
Pictures to prove my money is where my mouth is:
https://lemmy.starlightkel.xyz/pictrs/image/1c88b11b-6824-47a3-8d32-341a9ba86e87.jpeg
https://lemmy.starlightkel.xyz/post/128358
That’s all for ONE hamster.
EDIT: Also… fuck hamster balls. Hamster’s have very very poor vision, so they can’t really see anything outside the ball. They’re rolling around in a confusing environment with very poor ability to gauge the outside world. If you put a hamster in one of these, you have no idea if it’s freaking out or stressed out or having a good time… but it IS rolling around in absolute ignorance of where it’s going or what it’s bumping into and if you pick it up and move it around it has very little understanding of what’s happening.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐