Hamsters are more resilient than you think
Hamsters, given their small, chubby, scuttling selves, are actually quite resilient little critters. I had a hamster, called Louise, who had cancer.
Poor thing had a tumour on its face, on one of its pouches. It went into hamster hospital for an operation and had the tumour taken off.
The vets said that it would have a hole in one of its pouches but would quickly learn to eat in the other pouch. They didn’t know how long it was likely to survive.
To our surprise, Louise got better, and became her own lively self.
The only real difference was that she ate in circles, and span round until she got dizzy and feel over. Whoops.
She’d eat, and store food in both pouches. One pouch, however, was a big hole, so the food fell out. Once she’d eaten the food in her pouches, she’d notice the little pile of food to her left. So she’d eat that, and exactly the same would happen; a little less falling out each time.
It ended up that she just kept turning around – i think she got paranoid and though there was someone placing food just out of her eye line to taunt her. Poor thing.