OH NO

Fuzz Aldrin is dead! He's only been home two weeks. He was a baby. What the hell???

Fuzz Aldrin is dead! He's only been home two weeks. He was a baby. What the hell???

Oh, Nan... poor little guy, I'm so sorry.     RIP tiny Fuzz. 

I have no idea what went wrong.
He was just starting to take seeds from my hand this last week.
Friday night he was fidgity and didn't want to be bothered. So I didn't push him.
Last night he was very skittish as well, so I just gave him a few seeds (which he took).
Today he's laying out in his cage as if he just keeled over.

I don't know what happened. 

I'm sorry for your loss.

You might want to look around his cage very carefully to see if he chewed/ate something he shouldn't have.   I lost a degu to an impacted or lacerated bowel after he chewed some of the wire (!!) cage he lived in.  By the time I realized there was something wrong, it was too late to do anything for him. 

Sorry for your loss Nan.

I'm sorry for your loss.

You might want to look around his cage very carefully to see if he chewed/ate something he shouldn't have.   I lost a degu to an impacted or lacerated bowel after he chewed some of the wire (!!) cage he lived in.  By the time I realized there was something wrong, it was too late to do anything for him.

We've already removed everything from the cage and inspected it all. Neither of us see anything amiss.  It is basically a really big rat cage, with a very deep plastic base. All the toys - the bridge, the log with the seeds in it,  the crawl-in-it-and-chew-on-it log, were all new and, except for getting into the seeds and alfalfa stuffed in the one log (which seems to have had quite a bit eaten), nothing seems to have been gnawed on. The few other remaining items in there were Thor's, but they had been carefully sanitized with hot soapy water, detol wipes, bleach, and then washed with detergent and rinsed again for good measure. Anything that could not be sanitized was thrown away and new stuff bought. I even threw away all the treats that we'd bought for Thor, and got new ones.

Except the nibble rings. We got those a couple of weeks before Thor died, because Pets at Home didn't have his regular brand.
Oh. no. 

I hope that's just a coincidence there. Thor was quite old. But when I found him he was in the same kind of position - as if he'd been walking and just fallen over dead. Not curled up in his bed, which has been the usual for us for a very old hamster. Surely if there was something wrong with the nibble rings there would be other people having the same problem?  I don't remember the brand, got it at Pets at Home and emptied it into the glass treat jar and didn't keep the package. The Daughter will be able to recognize the brand if she sees it. I haven't tossed those out yet. I wonder if I should send a sample somewhere to have them tested?

I just took Fuzz Aldrin back to Pets At Home and got a refund. They had no idea, either. Said nobody else had brought a hamster back dead lately.

Sorry for your loss Nan.

Thank you.

I get ridiculously attached to small furry animals. He'd only been home two weeks and I really feel awful about his death. He was just a baby. The Daughter keeps telling me that the pet shops get their animals from small animal factory farms and one cannot know their history or genetics, and that it's absolutely not my fault he died. But I keep wondering if there was something I should/could have done. He's only the third Syrian hamster I've ever owned (second, actually, as Thor was the Daughter's) and the last one I had was in 1973. I've had plenty of rats, and Russian and Winter White hamsters, though, over the years. They have uniformly died of old age, except for one that got cancer. And Caligula (he lived up to his name), a Cambell's hybrid who escaped and was caught one night by our 20+ year old cat. (We assume she cornered Caligula and he yelled his usual "bite me!" at her, so she did....)

I didn't even get a chance to get a photo of the little guy, either.    He seemed fine, if a bit nervous. And we had just started "making friends", thanks to an abundant supply of sunflower seeds.

I guess I'll never know. Bummer.

Awww 

Definitely not your fault. These things can just happen. 

I lost one of my new chooks recently.  (After losing 3 since February , I bought four new ones) ,but this one, well he was just not thriving - figured out he was a he, so for us, almost a blessing, but I still felt really sad.   Still, couldn't have done anything for him, I didn't know he was unwell, never acted that way. He just croaked. 

Oh no, I'm so sorry for your loss. 

I also have a fondness for little fluffy squeaks.  I totally get where you're coming from.  *hugs hugs*

I lost a degu to an impacted or lacerated bowel after he chewed some of the wire (!!) cage he lived in.  By the time I realized there was something wrong, it was too late to do anything for him. 

Poor dear!  I'm a degu mommy too and lost one a few years ago due to a sudden bout of pneumonia.  I was devastated, and DH was in literal tears.

Poor dear!  I'm a degu mommy too and lost one a few years ago due to a sudden bout of pneumonia.  I was devastated, and DH was in literal tears.

I felt so helpless!  He was in obvious discomfort.  I just held him until he passed.    It was so hard.  I didn't know what to do for him to make it easier.

I felt so helpless!  He was in obvious discomfort.  I just held him until he passed.    It was so hard.  I didn't know what to do for him to make it easier.

So incredibly sad, it must have been just awful... 

I felt so helpless!  He was in obvious discomfort.  I just held him until he passed.    It was so hard.  I didn't know what to do for him to make it easier.

When our fluff-butt had his bad bout of pneumonia, we had taken him to the vet.  We were giving him antibiotics and he seemed to be getting better.  Then one day, he was just listless and visibly and audibly gasping for breath.  He couldn't even walk, the poor thing.  He lay on DH's chest coughing unable to move.  We wanted to take him to the vet, but in London, it was public transport all the way and the last thing we wanted was for him to pass away alone and frightened while in his transport box (in a carry bag) on a busy noisy bus and train journey.  We did take the plunge and go, and unfortunately, the vet determined the infection was just too much for his heart and the kindest action at that point was to put him to sleep.  It was awful. 

To all fellow little squeak owners - they are certainly family and it's horrible when they pass.  My heart goes out to you all during these tough times.   

 

So incredibly sad, it must have been just awful... 

I'd lost other pets before, but none that made me feel so helpless and distraught.  I loved all of my pets (especially my jerk hamster that my sister got me!), but Degu's* death was the hardest, because it was so clear he was in pain.  I just hated to watch him suffer.

*I'm notoriously bad at naming things.  I once had a cat that I called MCAT because my sister was studying for the MCAT when I acquired the cat and I thought it was funny.  Everybody hated the name.  I think my cat might've hated it, too.