Hamster pest!!!
 

So I go in to check my orchids and I see this !
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...psbucmm5vt.jpg

Even a root was ripped off. I thought dogs? No they would not dig in it. Then I thought Mice no I have had mice around and this never happen? Then I thought this looks like something the hamster would do.... The hamster cage is in the same room. So I go to the cage ( a 20gal tall aquarium) to find NO HAMSTER!!! The little F$%#@ jumped out at night and tried to get into my orchid pot.

I was shocked the hamster got out and went after my plant. I am going to repot this plant into semi-hydro I guess. The hamster is still missing and I have dogs that kill rodents so I am not sure how this story will end but I don't think it will end well. What a crazy thing to wake up to.

Do think the plant will have a better outcome. Sometimes trauma produces more strength and vigor.Think positive!

To find the hamster you can put out a dish of food and lay down lines of baby powder. The hamster will then leave a trail indicating the direction it has traveled. Unfortunately, ours found its way inside the wall to the basement steps, it was not located until it was too late. You could also bait a sticky trap, check it several times a day. If caught you can wear super thick gloves (protection against biting), coat the trap with oil to release the hamster gently. This method worked with a 6 foot salt and pepper king snake that my daughter "forgot" to latch the lid to its enclosure. Good luck with the hungry dog aspect, can't help in that department!

The best way (we have caught hamsters and gerbils this way) is to get a bucket, put some food and a little dish of water inside, build a ramp with books or something so the hamster can climb up into it. He falls in and cannot get out. Make certain no other food or water is available.

My kids had hamsters and gerbils for many years and this would happen frequently. Gerbils will often come to you but when they didn't.... Except for one trained Russian Dwarf, the hamsters always had to be caught with the bucket method.

The hamster is probably thirsty...thus digging into the pot (or building a nest).

Thanks guys for the Ideas and hope that we could find him. This hamster loves to run! he loves to dig I think he was tired and was trying to nest in the orchid pot. I will try and make a trap. The dogs have not found him yet so there is hope.

---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 AM ----------

GOOD NEWS! I took my flash light and looked around and I found the little stinker in the corner of a Closet. She is back in her cage now. WOW that was a close one because if my dogs found her first it would have been bad.

The orchids is doing well now too. I put it in Semi-hydro and it only lost one good root the rest of the roots are fine.

Great news, glad you found her first!

Glad for the happy outcome. I let the dogs see me handling the snakes and put the snakes where they can sniff, but I don't know what would happen if one got out when I'm not around.

Oh lordy! You people are braver than me. Snakes. Yikes!

DAD!!!

(or)

MOM!!!

Glad it was a good out come. The hamster I could handle but I can tell you what would happen if a snake was loose in my house. I would have to move.

I have never once felt threatened by any reptile near me. I can't say the same about my beloved fellow humans.

Lol! I have always had reptiles/animals of some sort in the house since my daughter was tiny. She was always catching something. She never has been great about keeping things locked up though. She likes them to be able to wander. Now that she has moved out, I can only hope she will avoid venomous animals and constrictors large enough to eat large prey. She dreams of building an educational herpitarium one day. When she was 10, she got 3 of her great aunts (in their 70's/80's) to touch a snake for the first time in their lives. It was a positive experience for all and they still talk about it.

Actually, I could touch a snake. Snakes freak me out less than spiders. Especially jumping spiders. I had one jump on me the other day after I moved an orchid pot. Took everything in me not to react and throw the LECA-filled pot into the air.

I adore jumping spiders. Those guys will never ever bite you, and if you look closely at them, you will see that they often turn their "heads" and look back! They watch you watching them!

Years ago people in offices used writing machines called "typewriters." Imagine a single device combining a CPU, keyboard and printer in one machine. Anyhow, at the end of the work day, people put an opaque dust cover over them.

At one place I worked a lady was deathly afraid of spiders. Her co-workers bought a rubber spider 10" / 25cm in diameter. After she left, they made an interlocking chain of rubber bands about a foot / 30cm long, and attached the spider to the underside of the phobic's typewriter cover.

They were ready with cameras the following morning. The lady removed her typewriter cover, and the giant wiggly spider jumped out at her. I wasn't there, but the photos were funny.

:evil:

Oh dear! Oh me! Oh my! Oh no! That is not comforting at all. I think I'm going to have nightmares.

My whole spider fear comes from childhood. I went to bed one night and felt that creepy crawly skin feeling. I just thought it was that creepy crawly skin feeling, but it didn't go away. I got out of bed, turned on my light, and flipped back the covers. …There were three! Yes, three! spiders in bed with me. I ran screaming into my mom's bedroom and completely freaked her out of a dead sleep. My dad was out of town on business and my screaming her awake scared her so bad that she yelled at me. Since then, spiders and I are not friends. They got me in trouble!

My daughter had a jumping spider on her window in her room. She was frightened. I just found some really adorable pictures online of them, then I helped her research information about them. She overcame her fear, became friends, and was sad to see it moved out of her windowscreen.

I like the jumpers also, they are the only spiders I let live in the house. By that I mean I leave then alone if I find them others I kill or take outside. When we first started the house we had Black widows move in. Now that was creepy those I kill. I have found 4 different kinds of them.

Snakes just scare me. I've had 2 horses bitten by rattle snakes and one of them died. Then the Bull snakes moved in and the rattle snakes moved out. So me and the Bull snakes have a love hate relationship.

There are several species of rattlesnake native to the Phoenix area. We have king snakes in our neighborhood (Lampropeltis getula californica.) These eat rattlesnakes, so we have no rattlesnakes in our neighborhood. I try to explain this to neighbors, who assure me they are compelled nevertheless to kill all snakes.

The only snake that scares me is the one that is about to strike. The only time I had a snake try to bit me was a pet milk snake. It was feeding time, my hand might have smelled like a mouse.

I am so glad we don't have rattle snakes in Tahoe. They are no joke. I would be more scared for my dogs then myself. We do have them in lower elevations.

Nicely handled! Bravo..