all grandmonkey asked wanted for his birthday yesterday was a deck of cards and a hamster.
.


how can we deny him the hamster? lol.that isn't the question.
.


any type or sex better to get? how big of a hamster cage? would a guine (sp) pig be a better choice?

i haven't had a hamster since i was his age. my sister thought she was being ever so nice to give me hers too. put it in mines cage.
.
yep...we had many hamsters after that and my mom got rid of all them.
.

I have had both G. piggies and hamsters

1- hamsters have sharp neddle like teeth and can bite, chew threw things too also the males a eat the babies if they are in same cage as momma when she gives birth. But if they are handled when they are young they get used to it and do well with being held or you could just use gloves to be safe.

2 G piggies are more social loved to be held and have attention poured upon them but also kinda messy and need clean cage .

Hamsters you could keep in a small cage and get one of those exercise ball things and let it roll around a room. or those tubes that connect and make a tunnel play ground.

G piggies cant use a ball like that because of their body shape ( their back arent made for that kind of thing.) and they do better in a larger cage like for a rabbit.

I prefered my G piggies ...only keeping the cage clean was more work then the hampsters cage (actuly we kept hampster in a small fish tank we had already)
I found no diffrence in the sex just dont get one girl and one boy lol.

Good luck and give Grand monkey a birhtday hug from me.
.
.tell him yes I have swam with a dolphine before but only once.
.

ty bmw.
.


i'm leaning more to the g pigs too.

we can have either one without paying a pet deposit. both kids had been wanting a dog. way too much money to shell out. i was thinking a g-pig might be more docile for petting and holding compared to a hamster.

some do bite. And they are nocturnal, and that may disappoint kids who can't stay up to play.

There is a very cute video of two minature hamsters having
fun at
.


Today it is on page one near the bottom, but if you look tomorrow it might move to page 2.

Cuteoverload does not have linked pages, so you have to go there this way. If you use your search, you can look at many previous ones. this is an example:
Lucy:

.


small rodents don't live long...our gerbils lived over 4yrs and the store said that was a miracle! So if lifespan is an issue--death and all that-- think about it.

I think hamsters will give BACK as much as you put into them.
With an enriched environment, etc, the biting may be less.

Good luck!

There are many types of hamsters now. These little ones are quite cute.

I've had both and prefer the guinea pig. They are cute, small and you can get a leash and walk them! I had a cute black curly haired guinea pig. They can be very messy but it's worth the effort.

My two hamsters were male and female and let's just say no one slept at night! Try explaining to a four and six yr old why one hamster is on top of the other and why the male is slinging the female from one side to another! Mama Mia! lol

We wore gloves to clean the hamster cage but they never bit at us until the babies kept coming and coming and coming and coming. If you get too many babies momma will eat them. That's another hard question to answer to a young child.

they brought home 2 teddy bear hamsters.

grandmonkey named his curry and lil'monkey named her's basil. these kids love to cook. lol.

they are both male. little guys. so far they are pretty calm when held.

i liked the idea of guinea pigs myself. space for the larger cage is an issue right now.

i'll take some pictures and post them tomorrow.
.


ty everyone for all the input.
.

We got g-doody a hamster recently. One hamster. When daughter was little we had several hamsters and one ended up pregnant and had a multitude of babies.

Yes they will bite. It's best to slowly 'socialize' them by getting them used to touch. I pet Tilda with my knuckle on her back.

She has bitten g-doody once. He poked his finger in the cage at her.

The cage we got rocks. Tilda sleeps in that condo room way at the top of the cage, lol.
.
(It's much taller than it looks in the picture.)

But yeah, they are nocturnal most definitely. Tilda starts rockin and rollin about 8-9 pm.

we got the same brand of cage doody, just a different model. it has a wheel on top. lol..they like their condo too. these are awesome and easy to add onto. which they can use their own money to do so, plus gives them something to put on santa's list.
.



.


maybe because we got them from a small pet shop, but they are very tame and love to be held. the workers (and lil'monkey who goes over there everyday
.
, since we share a common wall with the them) spend a lot of time handeling the pets. they also don't have cages and cages filled with hamsters.

curry, grandmonkey's little guy, is a little guy. it was his first day out to be adopted. he loves to sit in the food bowl and eat and try and sneak into the ball and run while basil is in there. he is a stinker.
.

.


yeppers doody, we have warned both of the monkey's that they may get bitten.
.

if you handle them gently while young like that, they will
train better, and be less bitey!

Many hamster owners become very creative with them.
like this one I saved ages ago-- this is NOT MY hamster however!

And this gif has always made me smile too!

.


I had a hamster in college... a golden one. That was so long ago I barely remember!

too cute mrsd.
.


grandmonkey now thinks curry will be like the mouse in stewert little.
.

.