Hello all!
It's been a long time since I've posted here! Life has been very strange over the past few years but thought I'd drop in for a quick update on Custard Hamstery. We adopted some rescue hamsters from our local RSPCA to live a spoiled life with us during COVID. Crumble and Dottie lived long happy lives before passing of old age, and we currently have a cheeky lady named Wednesday. Unfortunately we've lost a lot of our oldies recently from old age. Vincent, our hand-reared one-eared odd-eyed weirdo from our last litter is an old man now but he's still going strong, running around his cage and running on his wheel every night. We made the decision not to breed during the COVID lockdowns due to uncertainties about rehoming babies etc. Since the lifting of restrictions and being able to start up shows again (with safety measures in place), we recently picked up two newbies at the Bradford Championship show. Leo is a yellow banded and the great nephew of Vincent. He has a great temperament and we hope to have a litter from him to continue our line at some point in the future. We also picked up a sweet little Winter White boy since we missed having a Dwarf hamster here at Custard! That's about it from us at Custard. Hope all are well! Anastasia
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Hi everyone!
We recently attended Emley Show, where Lynne judged Syrians. Our Chinese boy Norman did pretty well and came in second in his class. Unfortunately Miss Rhonda who came to visit us from Tristar didn't get pregnant. She has since gone back to live out her retirement in a lovely pet home. Instead another lady from Tristar, Miss Ketzia has joined us to be Nico's 'second wife'! She's a cheeky madam who likes to chat back to us. Hopefully we will have better luck with pups from her. - Anastasia Hi everyone! It's been a mix of ups and downs here at Custard.
I recently passed my Masters in Animal Behaviour with distinction and will be graduating in summer. My dissertation was about whisking in Syrian and Chinese hamsters so guess this all paid off for something! I will try and write a small summary piece with some fun pics of whisker movement soon. We sadly lost Walnut and Hadrian recently. They were both old men and time caught up with them, but both had long and happy lives. Their memories will live on in Hadrian's kids Nico and Samphire! Both Nico and Samphire have been doing very well in shows with both landing firsts and seconds in their classes. Nico now has 2 Certificates of Merit and a Reserve Best in Show so we're very happy! We also recently acquired a wife for him - Miss Rhonda from Towy Vale has come to stay and we hope to have babies from them soon. We have another new addition - Norman the normal Chinese from Vectis! We've missed having a Chinese hamster here and he's a sweet boy. Finally, Lynne has passed her final Dwarf hamster judge exam and is now qualified in Syrian and Dwarf hamster judging, which is excellent news. Thanks all, and hopefully we will have more baby ham news here soon! - Anastasia Hey everyone! Quick update for you - I recently finished my masters degree dissertation so have finally had time to update the website! All hamsters and past hamsters pages are now up-to-date, and I've added some cute pics of our current babies, as well as info and pics from our past 2 litters. Nico and Samphire attended their first show last weekend, and both won their classes so we are very proud! Finally, I'll hopefully try and get a summary of my dissertation topic (which was of course on hamsters) up sometime soon, if anyone is interested in how hamsters move their whiskers and their feet.
Hope you're all well! - Anastasia We mated Hadrian and Mango and were delighted when Mango gave birth to a small litter on 30th June. There were 6 pups in the litter, 3 males and 3 females. We had two banded cinnamons, one long haired and 4 cinnamons, two of which were also long haired. The long coats were unexpected as we did not know that Mango was carrying long hair! It was an extremely hot time of year and Mango was an excellent, patient mother with her babies. All the pups were homed to families on our waiting list and are happily settled. We kept two pups the short haired banded boy Nico and the long haired banded girl Samphire who we hope we will breed next year.
Lynne Adelaide never managed to get pregnant and she went home to Tristar hamstery where she decided she would not have pups either! We have a new young female Cinnamon now bred by Tristar and we hope to breed her soon. We have named her Mango. The weather has been very hot and it has taken it;s toll on the hamsters. Sadly we have lost a number including Rupert, Lance, Bianca and Azula who all passed away gently due to old age. We miss them but we know they had a good life.
Breeding is always a risk and we know this and realise that every time we mate a hamster we are putting that hamster’s life on the line. It’s a choice that we make for them though an instinct deep inside would always drive them to breed but still it is our choice to let them have that opportunity. We have never lost a mother hamster before and only a very few pups through the years but sadly Orange Delight passed away due to birthing complications. Her pregnancy had been textbook normal but when she was checked in the morning of her due date we knew there was something far wrong. She was rushed to the vets but they were unable to do anything and she sadly passed away shortly afterwards. It appears she was unable to deliver the pups due to probably a malpositioned pup. We are of course devastated by this loss of her and the babies. We would have done anything to save her but it was too late and she was too ill to operate on.
During her short time with us she had wrapped our hearts round her tiny paws. We had become very fond of her and are full of sadness and of course guilt that we made a choice that ended her life. For anyone thinking of breeding it is always something to consider – can I deal with such a loss? We have had to and it has been hard so very hard. Play well at the bridge Orange Delight and look after your Custard babies well. We are waiting to see how Adelaide does. We are still unsure if she is pregnant. It's been quite a long time since we have done any updates due to some hectic life events however 2018 sees a new start for the Custard Hamsters. The Hallupert litter were all homed and are enjoying life with their new families. Sadly we lost several of the residents here including Azula, Bianca and Lance. They all enjoyed long and happy lives and are much missed. We briefly adopted a little lady Chinese, Tootsie, however she suffered some serious health problems and we only had her a few months. We have recently had two beautiful females come to Custard from Tristar Hamsters. The long haired cream female is called Adelaide and she has been paired with Hadrian so we hope for pups in March from them. We also have Orange Delight, a cinnamon who has been paired with Fergus and again if all goes well we hope for pups in mid March. Look out for pupdates!
I am doing this update as Anastasia has been busy working on her dissertation for her Masters degree (on hamster behavior of course!). Lynne Hi everyone!
Exciting news from Custard - we currently have one litter in the nest - the Halluperts, who are the babies of Halloumi and Rupert. The pups are around 10 days old now and both mum and pups are doing well. They are just beginning to wander out of the nest and there seems to be quite a lot of them so it's very exciting! Once their eyes open we will share some pics so watch this space! - Anastasia Hey everyone! We'd like to welcome the newest addition to Custard Hamstery, a beautiful red-eyed cream satin girl named Halloumi! This pretty little lady comes to us from Tristar Hams and we hope to breed her when she's older. :)
- Anastasia |
AuthorHi, I'm Anastasia and I primarily run the blog and maintain the website. I'm a 27 year old graduate with a masters in Animal Behaviour. I own the hamstery alongside my mum, Lynne, who may update occasionally too! Archives
January 2022
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