New Born

The list of topics that I want to blog on just gets longer and longer.  Usually I don't get much time to blog during the weekends.  During the weekdays, I spend my free time (after 10pm) on TV, cos it's my favourite way to wind down (brainless activity).  If I'm not watching TV, then I will be reading my Ibook. 

Let's see how many posts I can do tonight.

Last Saturday, something very exciting happened - we got baby hamsters!  It's just so funny how they were discovered.  On Sat morning, I took a quick look at the hamsters, placed the food dish in the cage and walked away as usual.  Me and Lynn were in the living room, when WK (who had just came back after being 10 days away) looked into the cage and said "How can there are baby hamster????".  Lynn and myself rushed over and saw 5 new born.  Immediately I posted pics on facebook.  The whole weekend, even till now, the focus had been the baby hamster(s).

But most of the baby hamsters didn't really make it.  The first one to die didn't even last a day (was dead by Sat night).  Then on Sunday morning, we couldn't find 2 out of the remaining 4, most probably eaten by their own mother.  On the previous day (Sat), we learn (from reading internet/talking to experienced people) that we should try to aviod distrubing the new family, not clean the cage for sometime, not hold the little ones (else their smell may be altered), and the mummy may turn hostile towards the little ones. Lynn did hold one baby on Sat morning before we found out about the do and don'ts. However, I think it may not be our fault either (could still have happened anyway).  So we hoped for the best for the remaining 2.  We were doing some art and craft on Sunday morning in the living room when we heard loud squeak from the cage.  We were horrified to see ants attacking the babies!  We were panicky and upset.  I told lynn to kill the ants (with her fingers).  Lynn did the best that she could, alternating between flicking/pinching the ants off the tiny/vulnerable 1 day old new borns, and stopping/looking/mumbling that there are just too many ants.  I was quite useless, and kept repeating to her to "kill the ants, kill the ants...".  I remembered that at one point, Lynn raised her little voice saying "I'm trying!".  Towards the end, she held the babies in her hand to get to the ants on their bodies, and I wasn't even protesting.  After that, we cleaned the cage.  I'm actually very proud of her that morning, because Lynn's actually a little afraid of ants, and would demand that we kill the ants if she sees them on the wall or near the food.  So I told her that she's very brave and that she saved the little hamsters.

The family seem to settle down better in their newly cleaned cage.  We did notice that the 2 remaining babies were located at different parts of the cage, and the mummy seemed to be only nursing one.  By yesterday (monday morning), the neglected one died too.  We are really hoping for the best for the sole survivour, which the mummy is nursing/cuddling very regularly. 

Over the past 4 days, Lynn learned a lot about animal behaviour - motherly instinct, sense of smell, nursing, natural selection (many offsprings, fittest survive), etc..  I asked her yesterday night if she would like to be a vet when she grow up, and she said yes..  Haha.. still a long way to go for my sweety, and most people don't become what they dream of, but become what they work for.  But children should dream.  And most importantly, this experience in itself is already priceless. 

Here's some pics:
The 5 new born, pic taken on Saturday morning:

The sole survivor. It has definitely grew bigger in size over the last 4 days:

Lynn named him (or her) "Clever":

I still can't tell the 2 adult hamsters apart, as to which one is mummy and which one is daddy. I think the greedy one is mummy and the playful one is daddy: