Introduction
Welcome, welcome to my humble hamster weblog. I'm currently the owner of seven winter whites, five of which are the offspring of two adult pearl winter whites. This is my first time keeping the breed, although not my first at rearing hamsters. My first hamster was a Syrian, which I found one night looking for food at a bus stop. Either she escaped, or was abandoned, I will never know, but that was about eight years ago. It was really bringing her back home that started my rodent frenzy, and I've since kept another seven Syrians and two rats (the seven Syrians I inherited from a friend's neighbour who didn't want them, and the two rats I got from a pet store. I think they were feeder rats since the lady sold them to me relatively cheap).
I'll tell you honestly that I had no access to information such as the internet as easily then, and was a bad, bad, uninformed owner. I kept the seven Syrians together, which now I know is a huge NO NO. Of course that ended up in a disaster - they fought and killed each other for consecutive nights until only one survived. Yes, I'll admit I was too thick to separate them after the first one died, because I had absolutely no idea that they were solitary. Am I ashamed? Yes. But that incident taught me loads, because now I can't emphasise enough that hamster fights can be deadly, no matter how cute, small, and harmless they look. They were so savage they ate the heads of the dead hamsters - and that's something you don't forget the next day.
Anyway, that's the Syrian story. Dwarfs are notably different, both in appearance and characteristics. Keeping them was a new experience, hence the reason for this blog. You should know that I learn by trial and error myself, and I don't claim to be an expert in keeping them, but I would like to share with you my observations about this particular dwarf breed, anyway. In my humble opinion I think I've learnt and prospered a lot from watching them, compared to my virgin experience with my first Syrian eight years ago, and therefore believe am more reliable. *nods*
So without another paragraph of pointless rambling, go check out the navigation bar at the top of the page.