by Dana

I had never really been interested in getting a hamster until my friend Jamey had two white mice that she was going to give to our Biology II teacher for extra credit to feed to his snake. One of them crawled up my sleeve and for some reason I liked it. I didn't want a mouse though because I think they're kind of ugly.

So I decided I wanted a hamster. My mom and dad finally said I could get one, so I looked them up on the internet and learned all I could about them and taking care of them.

Well, a snowstorm was supposed to come up, and my mom thought we should go get the hamster before it came so I'd have something to entertain me.

I had gotten all of the supplies, and on January 29, 2000 I got my first hamster, Peanut, a black eyed cream. She was 4-5 weeks old, and I didn't know if she was a male or a female so I chose a unisex name. I finally found that she was female after looking it up.

For the first two weeks I was mesmerized with her and wanted another one. I ended up going to the pet store even though my parents didn't want me to and got a male black eyed cream I named Marvin. I told my parents it was a female because they were really against me breeding hamsters. He never ended up getting her pregnant though.

Sometime in March I got a female black hamster for 5.99 that I named Delilah. I just got her because I wanted a black hamster. Then I got Snickerdoodle on May 8th because it seemed Marvin wasn't making any progress. A month later, Peanut's 11 babies were born... I hadn't even known she was pregnant I just thought she was getting fatter, she had always been pretty big since she was an adult. Three days later Delilah's 8 were born, but only 3 survived of hers.

Now I'm in the process of selling some locally and then I will take the rest to the pet shop. My friend Lisa got Marmalade, the cinnamon female and there's four others that are supposed to get some, including Jamey. I'm going to keep a sable male from Peanut's litter and a dark golden female from Delilah's (Any suggestions for names?)