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There are, as far as I know, only three really sad facts about hamsters (which really isn't a lot, considering how much fun they are): 1) Quite a lot of them are used in laboratory experiments. 2) They are the natural prey of virtually anything larger than themselves. 3) They don't live very long. The life expectancy of a Syrian hamster is about 2 years. To remedy 1) and 2), we can try to keep them 1) out of laboratories, and 2) out of harm's way. Nothing much can be done about 3), except accepting the fact and trying to be brave about it. It has been suggested that every 2 weeks should be counted as one "hamster year", but given that they then would be expected to die at the young age of 52, and that it really doesn't fit in with the way they mature, I have come up with the concept of >> fanfare <<
Modified Syrian Hamster Time!Roughly speaking, this means that:
I don't know if this will help us getting over the inevitable, but what the heck. It's worth a try. So, at the time of writing this, Jane The Hamster is about 34 years old MSHT. Judging by her behaviour so far, this timescale pretty much reflects her "childish innocence" phase, the "teenage tantrum" phase (with extra chewing of cage bars), and the "settling-down-as-young-adult" phase, in which she has become slightly calmer and -- no, you can't really use the phrase "more sophisticated" about a hamster. Somehow, it doesn't work. Not even for Jane! |
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