2002-10-01 - 11:53 p.m.

Amanda Panda

There is a time when you have to say goodbye to baby hamsters, mainly because they aren't babies any more.

Yesterday I was walking past the cage with Calvin and her six babies and I was thinking, "Gee, Calvin's fur is getting awful brown." The it occurred to me that it WASN'T Calvin, it was one of her kids. They're about 75% of her size and over five weeks old. They've been growing like weeds, but that's because I've been feeding them so much. The females really have to be separated from the males soon, or Calvin could become a grandmother really quickly.

So I called up my favorite pet store, and they said they'd be happy to take them off my hands. Generally they only pay a dollar in trade for the babies, which probably translates to less than 50 cents apiece as far as they are concerned. However, it's definitely a buyers' market - I'm glad they'll take them at all. I'd be screwed if I had to keep all six.

Late in the day I extracted the five kids I wanted to sell from the cage, put them in the holding cage and packed them off to Colonie.

The other thing I wanted to do while I was at the pet store was to get another female for breeding purposes. I've finally given up on getting babies out of Pooka: she's just too old.

When I got to the pet store and they put the babies in their new cage, I noticed what a group of little butterballs they are. They are a very chubby bunch, and all long haired to boot, so they look like animated powder puffs. Of course they are always cutest when you are about to sell them.

I was looking at the other hamsters they had there, and I was taking pains to buy on that wasn't related to my guys since I've sold hamsters to these guys many times. I noticed that there was a cage marked "Panda Hamsters." They were something I'd never seen before, "Black Bear" hamsters with a white stripe around their middle, like the guys I was selling. Every Black Bear hamster I've seen has been pure black, except for some small white markings on their tummies and paws. And when I say black, I mean REALLY black - literally they look like a hamster-shaped shadow. They are so inky-black you can't tell where their eyes are unless you are just a couple inches away.

Black Bear hamsters are a variant breed that has only become available in the last six years or so. Except for their incredible blackness they look just like hamsters, but they seem to have much milder dispositions. As long as you handle them with a little thoughtfulness and care, Black Bears are tame from the first time you pick them up, and that's something you can seldom say about a creature as nervous and paranoid as a hamster. In fact, in temperament they seem rather like rats, and they also have something of the splay-footed walk that rats do. I can't help but speculate if they are the result of some sort of forbidden genetic experiments with hamsters and rats. Really, doesn't Dr. Frankenstein have anything else better to do with his time?? Maybe that's a question we don't want answered.

Black Bear hamsters have two other slight difference from regular hammies: they seem to be a little smaller, and their health seems to be a little more delicate, which probably puts paid to the notion of rat genes in the mix: rats are bigger and hardier than hammies.

In spite of their differences, Black Bears can breed with regular hamsters, in fact I think the guys I have now are distantly related to a Black Bear hamster I had some years ago.

So I picked out a charming little Panda-Bear hammie, and put her in the cage I just took the babies out of. I also picked up some more bags of hammie food because you can never have too much of that.

While the woman was ringing up the new hammie, I was wondering what I was going to call her. Then it occurred to me - Amanda Panda! I thought it was a very nice name, but when I told Lily about it later on the phone there was an awkward silence. Well, *I* like it!

Oh yeah. One other difference between Black Bears and regular hamsters - they cost $20 - about three times the usual price. With the food and the hamster, I would up paying over $40 above the credit I got for selling the babies. I'm definitely not making a profit on this deal!