Right. So I was going to write about how Lada is doing better and his neck has been fine lately.
A few recent photos:
Looking sharp there. :-)
And tonight he actually fit a huge piece of carrot in his mouth. Never thought he would manage, he even struggled with it for long enough for me to get my camera out.
The magic moment:
And he had a run around the living room for almost an hour tonight, all was well!
Until I weighed him. He's down to 82 grams now!!! He's around 10 months old and most definitely should weigh more than that!
These pictures are from last night. He's better again now, I think, so I don't know what's going on…
He seems as healthy as he's ever been, eating his new food and drinking his vitamin-enhanced water. Still a little less hairy in the neck area than elsewhere, but not as bad as two weeks ago.
So I'm not too thrilled about this. Tonight I had the impression that Lada's neck has gotten worse again. It is really hard to tell, but it seemed to me like his neck fur is thinner again.
Tonight's picture:
Of course he is leaning forwards in this photo, so it's more obvious then. But even with that taken into consideration…
I will not be terribly surprised if there's another trip to the vet in the not-too-distant future.
You can still see that his fur isn't entirely normal in the neck area. But he still hasn't got any worse, so I guess maybe the new food and the vitamin supplements are helping.
Unless he turns up hairless some evening soon… It happened very suddenly last time, so might do so again!
We're in the middle of a heatwave and have had temps above +30 every day for a week. Tonight the forecast says it'll hit +34 C, which is close to the all-time heat record in the country!
Lada is hot. In fact, he's so hot that he's currently sleeping with his butt outside of his house! LOL!
I weighed Lada tonight, to see how he's getting on with the Oxbow Essentials food. Tonight he only weighed 96 grams. That's 10 grams down from the 104 he clocked a month ago (June 6).
Apparently, though, it's normal for a hamster's weight to fluctuate with as much as 1-12 grams, so I don't really worry yet. I only worry about the fact that he's so small, but I guess he's just built that way.
In the top and bottom photos you can kind of make out a circle in the fur on his neck. This is the area where he went bald before. It's getting hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for, so I would definitely say he's getting better.
Looks like the vitamins in his drinking water is helping. He hasn't eaten a lot of the new food yet, he is getting a mix of old and new and seems to prefer the old. But it'll still be a couple of weeks before his feed is completely changed over.
I just took this photo of Lada's neck. Look closely and you can see a circle covering his neck where his fur is a little different.
I can't tell whether it's the same, a little worse or a little better than before his last vet appointment. Will be keeping a close eye on his neck for the next couple of weeks.
So, we got back from Italy yesterday. It's now 1.5 weeks since Lada had his vitamin injection.
He's not gotten any worse. He's also not ok. His neck fur is still thinner than the rest of it, in the same circular area. But at at least he's not bald. ;-)
I decided to go with the vet's idea about a vitamin deficiency and change his feed. He already gets fresh greens of various kinds almost every night, and dog biscuits as a protein supplement. Other than that, his staple food has been "beapher Care+" hamster feed, same as Tanita got. I have now bought "Oxbow Essentials Hamster & Gerbil food", which is the only other brand of hamster food pellets in my pet store. His Care+ will be gradually replaced with the Essentials.
I also bought the beapher Hamster Vitamin Solution to add to his drinking water. Syrian hamsters technically do not need vitamin supplements, but this is at the vet's suggestion, so should do no harm.
If he keeps losing neck fur over the next couple of weeks, it'll be back to the vet again. But I hope not. Fingers crossed that this feed change is enough. I really don't want to take him to the vet for the 4th time in 3 months!
Lada went to the same clinic as before, but got to see a new vet. Third appointment, third vet. And this one agreed that his fur is thinner in the neck area. However, she couldn't see any indication of mites. Last time he got a mix of vitamins and medication, so she wants to see if maybe it's just a vitamin deficiency. So this time he got a shot of vitamins, no medication.
If it's a vitamin deficiency it means I need to change his diet around, maybe try another brand of hamster food or something. I told her what he eats and she said it's fine, but this particular hamster might need something else.
We're off to Italy tonight, so will check on Lada again when we're back next Thursday. If he keeps losing fur, it wasn't the vitamins and he will need to go back to the vet again. If he's better then, I'm going to have to track down some place that sells a different brand of hamster food.
Last night I realized that Lada's neck fur is getting thin again. I called the vet this morning and got an appointment for 9am tomorrow. So Lada will be off to the vet again. Looks like the mites are back. It's not very obvious yet, but definitely the case, I think.
This is Lada tonight. His fur is definitely getting thinner in the same area as before.
Damn it. He looked so good. I had really hoped he didn't have chronic bad immune system, but it's starting to look like he does.
Whenever
Lada actually gets up at night before I go to bed, he always gets to run around
in his little hamster ball, usually for 20-60 minutes depending on how late it
is. He also gets 15 minutes of free range time in the guest bathroom, which is
the only room in the house with no cables, no big furniture to hide under, etc.
When
running around free like that, he always starts by scent marking the same
corner of the room. Always. The same corner. And then he runs around for a bit
until he gets tired of it and climbs back into his hamster ball.
I have been
trying for ages to get this on film! He normally runs around for 5-15 minutes
and then climbs into his ball. For some reason it has been hard to get on video!
But last night, finally, finally…!
Take 1:
No, wanted to run around some more.
Take 2:
Nope, not done yet.
Take 3:
Having a little climb on two-legs, not ready for ball yet!
Take 4:
Enough of this, let me out into the rest of the flat again! :-)
I finally weighed Lada today. He weighs 104 grams. He came to live here 4 months ago today, more or less, and was 5 weeks old at the time, which makes him… just shy of 5,5 months old today. Apparently they are usually fully grown at around 6 months old.
He seems so small compared to Tanita!! Tiny little big-ears. :-)
Lada went to the vet today and got a preliminary diagnosis of hair follicle mites. He got an injection of medication and vitamin B, and a new appointment on Monday 19th for a follow-up injection if the first one seems to have helped. If it hasn't helped, the diagnosis was wrong… So we'll see. Fingers crossed!
Poor Lada seems to have come down with a case of... fur mites? Hair follicle mites? Something like that? I also just now discovered the site WikiVet. The Internet is wonderful.
Yesterday I booked my first ever vet clinic appointment. Lada will be seeing the vet tomorrow at 6.30pm.
For some reason he's especially attached to this corner in the bathroom. It seems he's better at this "marking territory" thing now. A week ago we thought he was ill when he did this sort of thing:
So I've been trying to get a picture of this for a while, but it's really difficult… So here's a video instead. Lucky Lada has the cutest little heart-shaped black spot on his tummy. :-)
Just when I thought Lucky Lada was showing signs of brains. For three days in a row he has voluntarily approached the cage door when talked to, and then climbed into his ball.
Tonight though, about 15 minutes into his ball-running-time, he did the following. For minutes on end!
Back & forth, back & forth. I wonder what was so interesting about the balcony door! He didn't stop until I made him and returned him to his cage.
The last few days Lada has been climbing into his ball on his own. And after his little outing tonight, he clearly demonstrated that he has found the cage door!
Luckily you need to be Superhamster to open that door. It's a two-hand job for a human to open it, so I'm pretty sure Lada won't be able to, no matter how hard he tries.
I like that he's climbing into his ball on his own, so I don't have to catch him for that anymore. Now he just needs to learn to sit still in my hand...
Now, taming this little hamster has turned into a bit of a challenge, but today I picked him up and put him in the hamster ball. Nice way to get him used to the fact that my hand isn't dangerous!
He had a look around, ate some rolled oats and then peed on the floor. So then back in his Hamster Palace Cage he went.
Sooo my new hamster moved in last Saturday, February 8th. He was 5 weeks old at the time. Tiny!!
His name is Lucky Lada, on account of his living in a Rolls Royce cage. :-) He has a brand new rat cage all to himself. It measures a whopping 78cmx48cm, and is 78cm high! It's a gigantic hamster palace!
I haven't been able to get any good pictures yet, because he isn't quite tame and I'm trying not to give him a heart attack. I'm working on getting him to approach me. He's happy to come grab oats from my fingers, but he's still a bit jumpy. I have time. He'll come around eventually.
He's such a cutie pie though, isn't he :-D
I was supposed to get a hamster from a breeder this time, but she ran into trouble getting her hamster pregnant. I just couldn't wait until the summer... not when my local pet shop suddenly had little hamster babies. One of their employees breeds hamsters at home and then they sell them in the shop. That's practically like buying from a breeder ;-)
I do want a long haired hamster next time, but I hope Lucky Lada gets a good 2-4 years on him first. :-)
