BS: Ol' blue hamster blues

Subject: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 11:47 AM

Apparently (according to an announcement read on the latest BBC Radio 4 News Quiz), a vet has advised that if your elderly hamster turns blue, you should remove the wheel from his cage.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blown hamstring blues
From: Severn
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 11:58 AM

...And probably the dead hamster, as well!

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 02:37 PM

So when's a hamster elderly? The ones my kids had never seemed to live more than a few months anyway. They never turned blue. Just stiff.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: open mike
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 03:59 PM

you mean this is NOT a J9ohn from Hull thread?
or a message about the snake and hamster buddies?
or hampter as it says..
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/67092/hampter_and_snake_friends/

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 04:04 PM

Had an ol' hamster and he turned blue
Had an ol' hamster and he turned blue
Had an ol' hamster and he turned blue
Betcha five dollars he's a dead un' too.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 06:00 PM

A hamster ought to live about 3 years if it's healthy, not a few months.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Mar 06 - 11:36 PM

Oh. Must have had a run of defective hamsters then. You're not supposed to change the oil in 'em or anything like that, are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 06:00 AM

Do they hibernate? If so they might just have been asleep.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 09:05 AM

Nah, B-W, they got a sealed lube system. But you do gotta change the tighten the nuts up every now and then.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: beardedbruce
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 09:14 AM

Get it some oxygen!

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 10:45 AM

They need not just food and water and a change of bedding at regular intervals, but...they also need a vitamin supplement put in the drinking water. A drop of it in each bottle of water. And they need fresh water, not stale, sour water. Otherwise, they don't last long. And they benefit from exercise, so a wheel is helpful.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: ranger1
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 01:40 PM

I have found hamsters to be quite suicidal. Does this indicate that they suffer from the blues?

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:00 PM

How would a hamster commit suicide? They can't make little nooses and hang themselves, nor can they overdose on pills or shoot themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:12 PM

They can jump from high places, like lemmings are supposed to do but don't. Or they can pine away from unrequited love.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: ranger1
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:18 PM

They love to leap underneath heavy objects that are being lowered onto the floor, as well. Jumping into the mouths of cats is another favorite method.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Becca72
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 02:32 PM

I had a pair who used each other's backs to climb out of the cage...the first one out then helped the other up and over, only to run free for about 2 minutes before the cat caught up with them...suicide or stupidity? Who really knows?

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 03:22 PM

One last fling before dinner, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Mar 06 - 09:29 PM

Ma woman done lef' me
Ma woman done lef'
Ma likker's all gone now,
An' ma hamster is dead.

I had a good woman
But I wasn't true
An' I had a good hamster
'til ma hamster turned blue.

I shore miss ma woman
In her dresses ov red,
Even more I miss ma hamster,
But ma hamster is dead.

---Woman Hamster Blues, as sung by Blind Lemon Mojo Arthur.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: gnomad
Date: 21 Mar 06 - 02:37 PM

How high do they need to climb for a suicide jump? We had a couple who would regularly climb a 13foot curtain to the top, and fall to a hard floor without evident damage.

I wondered whether there might be no limit, as is reportedly the case with mice, which are reported to suffer no ill effect from the fall involved in dropping down the shaft of a coal mine. Something to do with their comparatively low mass in a bulky body preventing their reaching a speed at which harm occurs.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Mar 06 - 02:51 PM

Yeah, if ya want 'em to go "SPLAT!!!" ya hafta shave 'em first to reduce the air resistance.

Subject: RE: BS: Ol' blue hamster blues
From: frogprince
Date: 21 Mar 06 - 03:05 PM

...or maybe use a slinghot. A good buddy's son admitted years after the fact that when his sister's hamster "got lost", he had actually launched it in the nose of a model rocket. He described the result as "hamster pate".