<p>My 11 yr. old was begging me for one so I finally relented over the weekend. We’ve waited the requisite 48 hours (actually four days) and it still doesn’t want to be held, and screeches when she comes near it. Is this the way they are? We got one last month who bit so hard it drew blood, so back to the pet store it went. I’m tiring of the tears and drama of finding the “perfect hamster”…!! any advice would be very welcomed!</p>
<p>I think all hamsters are like that. Guinea pigs you can cuddle a bit.</p>
<p>In my experience… yes. You have to get hamsters when they are very, very young. I had many hamsters as kid and only the youngest ones were able to be tamed… also some types of hamsters are mellower than others.</p>
<p>In our experience, rats have been FAR better pets than hamsters. They are very friendly, don’t bite (unless they mistake your finger for food), very intelligent little creatures. Again, get one at the youngest age possible. Our D got one when she was 5 when her kindergarten class had a litter. It was the best pet… the only problem is they die after a couple of years.</p>
<p>We are an animal crazy family and have had dozens of various and assorted pets over the years. We’ve actually never had less than three pets since my H and I got married! Crazy, I tell you. The hamster is probably the only pet I would never recommend. They are almost uniformly unable to be tamed. They bite often. If you don’t want the trouble of a dog or cat for an 11 year old, I’d highly recommend a rabbit. Very affectionate, quiet, can be litter trained, no problem leaving them for a few days if you go away for a weekend. We’ve had several and all have been fantastic pets. Stay away from the hamsters! ;)</p>
<p>Same experience. Our hamster never tamed. Hideous little thing went crazy every time anyone came near it. Our daughter was about the same age. Terribly disappointed most of the time, but she never gave up trying to be the little guy’s friend. </p>
<p>He also had a very bad habit of chewing his way out of the tubes in his habitat. This eventually proved to be the end of him. I left him on the back porch for about an hour before the school bus since ldgirl and I were going to clean the cage together that afternoon. Didn’t realize he had another little hole going…got out and fell into the swimming pool.</p>
<p>My son pet-sits for a couple of really nice guinea pigs…very sweet. Bunnies are also very nice. (But being a farm girl, I have hard time looking at any of 'em as something other than an FFA project, or barn cat food…)</p>
<p>Just curious…why did you choose a hamster as a pet ?</p>
<p>is it because they live in a tank and are small compared to a cat or small dog ?
Less work than the above ?</p>
<p>Rats are the absolute best. Smart, easily tamed, don’t make messes, don’t squeal. My younger d. use to raise and hand-tame them, and sell 'em back to the pet store.</p>
<p>^Yes…that’s the other thing. Hamsters are kinda gross. Ours had major hygiene problems. Had this elaborate cage with little rooms…all in the hopes he would use one room for the bathroom. Nope…pooped and pee’d all over that habitat.</p>
<p>I agree about rats. I had a hamster in college, and while it was reasonably tame it didn’t have much personality. We got my S a rat (Curly) in 2nd grade, and he was a wonderful pet - smart, fond of people, and an enthusiastic and adventurous eater. If someone forgot to close up his cage we would find him perched on S’s chair at bedtime, waiting for a story. It was soooooo cute. Unfortunately he would have spent his afternoon chewing up the computer cables, so I don’t recommend letting them run around unsupervised.</p>
<p>D brought home the class hamster, which infected Curly with a pneumonia-causing bacterium that eventually killed him, but not before I had to make a couple of trips to the pet emergency room. If you get a rat make sure that it isn’t sneezing - that’s a sign that it may be infected. It’s supposedly fairly common in pet shop rats. Also, keep the rat away from hamsters, which carry the disease but often don’t show symptoms.</p>
<p>We had a hamster for a few years and he finally got very, very sick. We took him to the vet and were shocked to learn that she needed a hysterectomy!</p>
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<p>Also makes for the possibility of more that a pair. My daughter had gerbils - they were supposed to be the same sex. When they had the first set of babies we figured out they weren’t. One set of babies was cute. Bought another cage and thought they were sorted by sex. Till the next lot of babies and the next arrived. And when they got too crowded they ate the babies. And when one of the original 2 got too old or maybe sick the others went after him and just about ate half his skin off. After that we did not find them cute anymore. Have had pets all my life and never expected to be glad to see one die but we were delighted when the last gerbil bit the dust!</p>
<p>I had two parakeets that were terrible with humans. (And thus, their names…Killer and JR.) A vet finally clued me in that they wouldn’t socialize with humans because they had each other. Wonder if same is true for other animals?</p>
<p>We have a dog as our pet that’s worked out FINE, but our daughter has this pet obsessed friend who has TEN hamsters, two dogs, two gerbils, and a sugar glider! She wants a chinchilla but her mother has refused so far. She convinced my daughter to get one, and I must say, the class pet hamster is very sweet and tame as is another hamster of a friend of hers. She’s so disappointed and I’m SICK of this already! Thanks for validating that we’re not the only hamster dysfunctional family! I guess we’ll wait another week or so and see how it goes, then maybe back to the store with this one!</p>
<p>Rats make better pets than hamsters or guinea pigs. I believe any small pet needs to be socialized at a young age to become a good pet. Even kittens and puppies need to be introduced to humans before they reach a certain age. We had a bunny which was very cute and relatively tame, but it was not a “cuddly” pet, probably because he adopted us when he was already past his “socialization threshold”.</p>
<p>As far as having a couple of them so they can be happy… My sister became our town’s guinea pig breeder for that particular reason. Yes, her piggies were very happy!</p>
<p>^^^DO NOT get a chinchilla, they live forever, poop all over and are not that friendly.</p>
<p>Guess we got lucky with our hamster. It is a black bear hamster and doesn’t bite or screech (I had no idea they could make noise) and is cuddly and cute. It was pretty young when we got it. Maybe 3 or 4 weeks old? We love it. Our cat loves it too. It sits outside the closed bedroom door. Waiting. Always waiting.</p>
<p>Good luck if you decide to trade it in again. Hope the next one is friendlier!</p>
<p>Another vote for rats. The tails are kind of reptilian looking but once you get over that, they are sweet, smart, and diurnal.</p>
<p>Longish rat story: </p>
<p>Once when my oldest daughter was about 6 years old, she asked my husband what sex was. He said, “Do you remember the rats we had?” “Oh, yes”, she said, and recalled that she and her little sister had had 2 pet rats, both young females. After a few months of happy rat ownership, they thought it would be fun to let them have baby rats, as several of their friends had permission to adopt. My husband went to the pet store and borrowed a male rat for a conjugal weekend visit, and birds and bees lesson. </p>
<p>Several weeks later, one of them suddenly became very ill and died within a few hours, most likely of a complication of being pregnant. </p>
<p>After recalling this story together, my husband said to her, “Well, the one that had sex died.”</p>
<p>I like gerbils. Almost no scent; they are desert animals. It took our cat months to figure out there was a rodent in DS’s room.
We had two hamsters later. One killed the other. It was brutal.</p>
<p>We’ve never had a friendly bunny, but both of ours have been cast-offs. They can be litter trained however you can’t train them not to chew, so you can’t really let them out much.</p>
<p>We had good luck with our pet gerbils. They were very sweet, and gerbils are night-time sleepers, so they were playful during the day. I’m not sure about all hamsters, but we were told they are nocturnal. </p>
<p>We also raised an orphaned baby mouse. It was cute as a button, but we could never tame it, although it was very young when we found it.</p>
<p>Another vote for apair of guinea pigs, but one of minre is now about 8 years old.</p>