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Text, photos, and source code © Merry L. MorrisDesert Hamsters are so cute! |
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Meet our desert hamsters, shown below in the order in which we brought them home. They all look very much alike, but they have very different personalities.
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Bright Spot had to be separated from the others in the pet shop. He likes to live alone. He didn't even want to live with cute little Puffball. He is a clumsy little guy, unlike all the others. Maybe he likes to live alone because he can't keep up with our other, fast-paced desert hamsters. But he seems very content with his daily routine |
But Puffball is so tiny! She hates to be alone. When she is alone, she sits and looks sad. She is only happy and playful when she is with at least one other desert hamster. We brought her pet shop cagemates, Buffball and Fluffball, home to live with her, and things went well at first ... |
Buffball is a gentle "giant". He is bigger than most desert hamsters (almost 3 inches long), but he gets along well with whoever shares territory with him. Even nasty little Fluffball loves him. He did not mind sharing territory with both Fluffball and Puffball, but Fluffball became jealous and threw Puffball out of their happy home. |
Fluffball is so cute, but she is a little bully. Usually desert hamsters can live happily in groups, but she does not want to share her mate, Buffball, with any other desert hamster, especially not with poor little Puffball. Fluffball would not even wait long enough for us to find a friend for Puffball before she threw Puffball out of their once happy home. |
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In the pet shop Dustball seemed timid and easily frightened. He was "beaten up" by the other desert hamsters, so the pet shop people put him in a cage by himself. But once Dustball met Puffball, he seemed to change into a loving potential mate. He and Puffball seemed happy together at first... but the story did not end there |
Little Spot is tiny like Puffball, and he looks very much like Bright Spot. But he is very coordinated and very fast (in more ways than one). We brought him home to replace Dustball after Dustball and Puffball's relationship ended, and within three days, Little Spot and Puffball were expecting teeny-tiny babies! |
In the pet shop Marshmallow (new) was as curious about me as I was about him. I had never seen an all white desert dwarf hamster before. And he apparently had never seen a human who had never seen an all white desert hamster before! |
Marshmallow (new) is tiny like all desert dwarf hamsters. But his fur was pure white when it first grew in and will remain pure white with a light gray undercoat throughout his life as an adult. |