Sweet Little Menagerie

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 babies are 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 give us some wonderful babies when the time comes.

Huge shout out to Nycole with Sweet Sunset Rodentry for helping get these babies 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 hamster babies are 2 weeks old! They are adorable, and very wiggly for photos!

We might keep 1 of these babies 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 babies ready for reserve yet, but we have growing babies 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

16/10/2024

Just an adorable baby dormouse 🥰

15/10/2024

These two boys are officially on the wbesite and ready for reserve 💜

I wanted to give them their own post since they were mixed in with other updates in the previous post. These 2 boys must go home together. They are both very sweet. The rexoid boy has been giving us kisses, and the silvermane boy is a little bit more shy but still sooo sweet.

14/10/2024

Baby updates and Rat AVAILABILY POST

Petunia's baby are 5 weeks old! The temperament on these babies is great, they are so calm and a couple of them even like to give kisses! The two girls are staying here with us and have been named Daisy and Orchid. The two boys are officially available for reserve to approved adopters! If you are interested and have not filled out an adoption form on our website, it can be done quickly and easily :)

Our 2nd female dormouse also gave birth, so now we have 2 litters of dormice! We are likely keeping 2 babies, but will have some available babies when they get older. They are not ready for reserve yet, though.

Lastly, our mama hamster, Cola, gave birth on 10/10/24. As only our second hamster litter, we are excited to watch these babies grow!

Please message the page if you are interested in the two males rattie boys, and feel free to reach out with any questions!

14/10/2024

Later today we will be posting a pair of Petunia's babies for reserve along with an update on babies we currently have growing in the rodentry. There will be 2 males from Petunia's litter that will go up reserve, and the info for that will be included in my update post later.

Stay tuned!

08/10/2024

Our dormice had their first litter on 10/3/24! We are pleasantly surprised to see the pied markings on these babies, since our adults have white only on the tail tips and their underside.
The babies are doing great. They have wonderful milk bands and the parents are very good about letting us interact.

05/10/2024

Petunia's litter is so sweet and adorable 🥰

30/09/2024

We would like to introduce Ivy, Birch, and Cedar, our African Pygmy Dormice (APD) aka Micro Sqiurrels. These 3 make up our tiny colony consisting of 2 females (Ivy and Birch) and 1 male (Cedar).
These little cuties complete our Menagerie 💜 We considered adding them about a year ago and decided to hold off at that time, but we just ultimately couldn't resist.

Despite adding these little cuties, we remain a very small rodentry. Availability is limited for all of our critters, and we do not have babies ready to go at all times. Remaining small allows us to comfortably provide our critters with the time and enrichment they need.

Included with the photos of the dormice are some photos of our small set up. For the rats, large bin cages and the smaller wire cage are typically used for maternity cages and making pairings. The Critter Nation cages are for the general population, with males and females separated. We are in the process of switching the hamsters completely over to bin cages. The dormice have a large vertical bin cage to allow lots of room for climbing.
We have spare cages for the critters as needed, and many empty smaller tanks that we don't use from when we used to breed mice.

Sharing the setup is not always easy for a rodentry. It opens breeders up to criticism and judgement from different areas of the rodent community because we do not all do things the same. I am proud to share photos of our set up because it is what works for our rodentry and keeping the critters happy.

26/09/2024

We made a little change in the pairings and decided to pair Cola to Waffle instead of Cookie. We plan to do a pairing with Cookie in the future, but right now it made more sense to go with Cola.
We had a successful pairing with them a couple nights ago, so if the pairing was successful we expect babies in less than 3 weeks!

25/09/2024

Here's an update on Petunia's babies! They are 2 weeks old and they are doing great! They are so chunky and adorable.

Petunia gave us a surprise and one of her babies is not rex, which means that she is not double rex and is recessive hairless. The breeder she came from was unaware it was still in their lines, but recessive genes can be so tricky and can pop up out of no where after being absent for many generations.

We are still unsure how many, if any, babies will be available from this litter, but we will continue to post updates as they grow!

23/09/2024

Just some quick updates :)

For the rats: close to 2 weeks ago, we paired Winter and Herman. Winter looks to already have a belly, but I like to hold out official judgement until after the 2 week mark. This is a repeat pairing; last time they gave us a beautiful litter of mostly marten babies and a couple of siamese, with some dwarf and also harley coat mixed in. This will be Winter's last litter before she lives the retired life.

Petunia's babies are still doing great! They are so chunky and adorable. I will be getting updated photos of the babies this week!

For the hamsters: within the next few days we will be pairing Cookie and Waffle. If the pairing is successful, we would expect to have baby hamsters in the next 3 weeks.

16/09/2024

Petunia and her babies are doing great! We are so happy to see them thriving after the rough start with the litter!