A tale (?) of two Hamsters

After last week's horrific crash from which it looked likely that Richard "Hamster" Hammond looked at though he would not survive the night, it is great to report that he was actually able to walk from the helicopter to the ambulance when he transferred from a hospital in Leeds to one in Bristol. He is clearly a "survivor"!

25 years ago, the same could not be said regarding another Hamster.

We had a pet Hamster in our first flat. A flat, which from memory, never experienced temperatures above freezing. (It was supposedly heated by 2 or 3 night storage heaters, but whatever they stored over night it was not heat, or if it was, that heat was never released to the outside world. Thinking about it, they could actually have been the very best "storage" devices ever made.)

Sadly, the Hamster - like Richard Hammond - appeared to be a speed demon as it ran around inside its plastic ball, sometimes crashing into objects with such force that the two halves of the ball fell apart, thereby allowing it to escape for hours on end.

One day, before "Hammy" was a year old, we found him "dead as a proverbial parrot", and regrettably had to bury him in the garden.

Now, when I say "dead", Hammy certainly appeared dead. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that hamsters can hibernate when there is a sudden change in their environment i.e. sudden temperature drop, lack of water, etc. A hibernating hamster may apparently appear stiff and cold with little evidence of breathing and many owners have assumed a hibernating hamster to be dead at first.

Had we known this we would have been able to follow the recommended advice which is to place them in a warm room or to increase the temperature of the room gradually.

The advice further suggests that the hamster should not be placed near a fire or on a radiator or anywhere in extreme heat, so I guess that putting him in a plastic bag on top of the night storage heater wasn't the best thing that we could have done either.

Two hamsters, two different outcomes. One survived having received the very best medical attention, the other....sadly just had us!!