Sweet Little Menagerie

16/01/2025

Pairings Update

We made 2 rat pairings in the last couple weeks and it looks like Daisy has a belly! The second paired female, Petunia, doesn't appear to have a belly at this time.

We also had a successful pairing with our Syrians, Tortilla and Armadillo, a couple of days ago. If the pairing was successful we will have new hamster babies in a couple weeks!

10/01/2025

I apologize for the silence lately and appreciate everyone's patience! We had some stuff going on over the holidays that took most of my attention.

I was able to get photos of the growing hamster babies this morning and
I am beginning to reach out to adopters on the waiting list. There are 4 babies, all short hair and chocolate color but one is dom spot and two of them are satin coat.

We do have more than 4 adopters on the on the waiting list, so these babies may all be spoken for, but adopters on the waiting list do sometimes opt to wait for another litter, or drop off the list for one reason or another, so it is hard to predict.

If you are interested in a hamster from us feel free to fill out our adoption form on the website and you can request to be put on the waiting list!

02/01/2025

Rat Pairings Update

We made 2 pairings on 12/28/24! Daisy and Herman, and Petunia and Slate. If these pairings are successful we hope to have new babies in the next month.

We are also excited to make pairings with our werewolf carriers, but we have about another 8 weeks before they are of breeding age.

22/12/2024

Rodentry Update

After careful consideration, we have decided that the dormice will not remain part of our breeding program. They are adorable little creatures, but they are not a good fit for our rodentry. Our existing dormice will likely be going to another breeder in the coming weeks.

We will be focusing on the rats and syrian hamsters and do not anticipate adding any other critters in the foreseeable future.

Rats: We will soon be pairing our Siamese velveteen girl, Daisy, with our pointed marten harley dwarf boy, Herman. The litter will not include dwarf since Daisy is not a carrier, but we hope this will help us bring back our dwarfs in the future. We are also waiting for our werewolf carriers to grow more before we can pair for werewolf babies! Lastly, we have some new residents coming soon that will add fawn and pearl to our lines.

Hamsters: We currently have a litter of 4 growing babies, and we are waiting for a couple of our girls to reach breeding age and then will make more pairings. We may also be pairing Cola for her final litter soon, likely to our hairless boy, Armadillo!

16/12/2024

I'm so sorry for the delay in responding to some of the adoption forms. My family got hit with a cold/flu so we've been recuperating.
I will be getting through applications and emails today and tomorrow.

Thanks so much for your patience and understanding!

13/12/2024

Edit: They found their family 🥰

These two boys are officially on the website and ready to find their family! They must go home together.

I know there are several adopters watching for rats and I apologize that there is limited availability at this time. As mentioned in our post yesterday, our goal is to have more availability in the coming months and we are excited for what's to come!

*You must have an approved adoption form before you can reserve. If you have not completed a form, please fill it out before sending a request to reserve.
*Reservation requests will be reviewed in the order received. A request does not guarantee adoption.
*Please be patient for a response as it may take time to review and confirm you have an approved form on file.
*Deposit required within 24 hours to hold. Do not send without receiving confirmation from us.
*Please read the Rat Info and Policies page on the website for additional information.
*Arrangments for pick up will be made for 12/21 or after.

11/12/2024

Rat Availability Update

Please read full post 😊

There will be a one pair of male rats looking for their family from Willow's litter. They are currently about 6 weeks old and they will be posted on the website for reserve on Friday 12/13 at 11am. We do not have a waiting list for rats and currently adoptions/reservations are first come first serve. Please check out our Rat Adoption Info and Policies page on the website if you may be looking to adopt from us.

I would also like to address plans for future availability. As some followers may know, I had a baby in April. During my pregnancy and maternity leave, things at the rodentry really slowed down. Due to that, and more recently, some recent litters being smaller than expected, along with selecting for the future of the rodentry, it has led to extremely limited availability. We are in the process of ramping things up in order to increase future availability, but it is definitely a process. We appreciate the patience of those waiting for their chance to adopt and hope that you continue to watch our growth because we are excited for the future!

We will still remain a relatively small scale breeder to maintain our current care standards without feeling overwhlemed with critters, but we look forward to being able to offer more babies than we have in recent months.

I am always happy to answer any questions so you can feel free to message the page! I do my best to respond to messages quickly, but aside from the rodentry, my full time job and my kids keep me busy as well. Most breeders do this as a side hobby, and have things going on outside of the rodentry so we always appreciate your patience and understanding!

Pictures of the two boys that will be posted on Friday 💜

05/12/2024

We had some hamsters born on Tuesday! Mom, Cookie, is our chocolate dom spot and dad, Donut, is our chocolate satin. We have 4 little ones and mama and babies are doing well.

We also had some more dormice born on 11/29/24. Since our dormice live in a small colony and our females look the same, it is hard to tell which mama gave birth. They all care for the babies together.

Lastly, our rat mama, Mist, gave birth this morning. We had seen some signs of labor on Monday but no babies until today, and unfortunately only 4 of 9 babies made it. We are letting mama and babies rest so we don't have any pictures yet, but we will being keeping a close eye on everyone.

26/11/2024

We are expecting another litter of ratties in the next few days!

Due to getting started with our werewolf line, Willow's litter (the litter posted yesterday), will likely have a very limited availibility, but we are in the process of increasing our pairings in the near future so that we have greater availability moving forward. We will still remain a small scale breeder but we are working on getting back into the swing of things since my son was born.

Temperament remains our top priority, but we are so excited to get our werewolf line going. We will also soon be adding fawn and pearl to our lines as we work with another breeder that we have worked with before, Ratatouillies Rattery.

Picture of Mist, our expecting mama💜

25/11/2024

Willow's little ones are 4 weeks old and they are super cute! They will be posted on our website for reserve in 1-2 weeks. We are still working on deciding which ones will stay here at the rodentry.

08/11/2024

Willow's little ones are 10 days old and looking quite adorable!

05/11/2024

Some good insight on hairless hamsters in this post! There is so much misinformation out there on them but they can definitely be bred ethically!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/oZgu6ATGphCjDxJn/

Insight on hairless hamsters:

While there is a group out there that believes raising hairless hamsters is unethical, I’d like to shed a little light on this topic.

Hairless hamsters have no harder time regulating body temperature than furred hamsters, all hamsters are susceptible to cold and should be kept away from cold drafts. Their health and longevity is no worse than furred hamsters. Their care needs are not any different than that of furred hamsters. In fact, our last hairless to pass of OLD AGE was 2 years and 11 months old. How is it that we can say we want to better the health and longevity of hamsters without doing so in all genes? Every species of animal out there has had to be worked with to better the species. Hamsters are no different. The divide on communities is very large and many pet owners have been caught in crossfire, this is unfair to them. People are belittled every single day and torn down for simply talking to, adopting from, or mentioning a good experience with breeders who are also belittled, slandered, and had their conversations taken and talked about for fun. The science and research behind many is pushed aside for personal opinion. Opinion does NOT equal fact. Many cross that fine line and believe their way is the only way, which again, is opinion. Enjoy your pets, love them a little more, and know there isn’t only one righteous group that is the end all be all of pet keeping.

03/11/2024

Willow's litter is 5 days old and they are doing awesome! Mama is doing a great job 😊

02/11/2024

Some new residents arrived yesterday! We are still working on names for these cuties but we are excited to have them here!
They are still young so they have some growing to do before becoming part of the breeding program but they are going to make a wonderful addition when the time comes.

Huge shout out to Nycole with Sweet Sunset Rodentry for helping get these cuties to me and for the sweet hairless boy 💜

31/10/2024

BABY UPDATES! 😊

Willow had her babies on 10/29/24. There are 6 females and 4 males.
It did seem that Mist was pregnant as well, but unfortunately appears that she resorbed her babies. It happens sometimes, but we were looking forward to her babies too.

The baby hamsters are growing like weeds. They are so adorable!

Last but not least, the dormice are crazy cute! They make an awesome addition to our menagerie.

None of these babies are ready for reserve quite yet, but the hamsters and dormice will be coming up! We do have waiting lists for both the hamsters and dormice, so feel free to message if you are interested.
I'm always here for questions as well 💜

24/10/2024

The hamsters are 2 weeks old! They are adorable, and very wiggly for photos!

We might keep 1 of them here, and if so, will likely be the chocolate or the black one.

23/10/2024

We have bellies on these girls! They are due in the next week or so.

Willow and Mist were paired to our werewolf boy, Neo. We won't get any visual werewolf in these litters, but we hope to get some with the next generation.

We are so excited to have finally introduced werewolf into our lines, as it's been in our plans for awhile now.

Edit: I am really not liking my lightbox. If anyone has recommendations for something that works well please let me know!

20/10/2024

We have officially added information about the dormice to our website and have added them as an option on the adoption form! We don't have any ready for reserve yet, but we have a growing litter and we do have a waiting list for the dormice.

If you are interested in adopting dormice you can reach out to be put on the waiting list, and make sure to check out the Dormice Info/Policies page on the website!

https://sweetmenagerie.wixsite.com/mysite