An average Onion day

Happy Valentine's Day

2006-02-15T22:45:00.000Z

I'm a day late but never mind hamsters don't have calendars!!

My favourite food

2005-08-31T18:39:00.000Z

Onion really really really loves eating Pumpkin seeds.

Naughty Onion

2005-05-29T04:09:00.000Z

Hamstar wars

2005-05-29T04:07:00.000Z

Everything you ever wanted to know about the hamster

2005-05-17T15:18:00.000Z

Common hamster: Cricetus cricetus
Grey hamster: Cricetus triton
Dwarf hamster: Phodopus sungorus
Golden hamster: Mesocricetus auratus
Habitat: dry places, on steppes, sand dunes, borders of deserts. Common hamster also found on agricultural land and river banks.
Life-span: about 2 years.
Food: mainly seeds, grasses, root vegetables, fruits, corn and pulse crops. Common hamster also eats insects, lizards, frogs and small mammals.

Distribution: Common hamster: - Belgium to Lake Baikal in Siberia; Grey hamster:- Greece and Bulgaria to borders of Outer Mongolia; Dwarf hamster:- Siberia, Manchuria and northern China. Golden hamster:- not found in the wild since 1930 but originally ranged from Rumania and Bulgaria through the Caucasus and Asia Minor to Iran.
Description: common hamster:- guinea-pig size, reddish-brown above, black below, white bands on shoulders; very short tail. Golden hamster:- light reddish-brown above, white underneath. The seven species of grey hamster have mousey or reddish coloured fur and longer tails. The dwarf hamster is the smallest, with greyish or buff upperparts, white underparts and a short tail. The golden hamster is the most well-known hamster, having been kept as a popular pet for many years. However, there are about 14 species of hamster, ranging from the guinea-pig sized common hamster to the tiny dwarf hamster, 5 - 10cm in length. They are short-tailed rodents, similar in many ways to gerbils and voles.
Hamster Habits
Burrowing; most hamsters live in dry places such as the edges of deserts, but the common hamster lives among crops, in ploughed fields and along river banks, often swimming. When they are not busy searching for food, hamsters are in their underground burrows.
The common and grey hamsters have short shallow burrows for use during the summer and deeper ones for the winter. Each burrow is long and branching with several entrances and a number of compartments for nesting, storing food and for 'toilets' - hamsters being very clean animals. Dwarf hamsters live alongside pikas (small relatives of rabbits and hares), and use their burrows and paths.
Common and golden hamsters are mostly nocturnal; grey hamsters may be seen by day and night during the spring and summer, but are completely nocturnal in the winter.
Hoarding; hamsters are well-known for collecting and storing food in their burrows. Food is collected in the large cheek pouches and carried back to the burrow. A hamster can stuff an amazing amount of food into its pouches and when packed full, the pouches can extend back beyond the level of the shoulder blades. The winter food stores can be enormous; one common hamster's store was found to contain 90kg of cereals, pulses, seeds and root vegetables! Poorer Chinese peasants have been known to make a living by digging up the grain stores of grey hamsters.
Hibernating; in the winter, hamsters stay in their burrows, blocking up the entrances with soil. They are not true hibernators but sleep in a grass-lined nest, waking up every five to seven days to feed from the food they stored during the autumn. While hibernating, the pulse rate of the golden hamster drops from 400 per minute to 4, and it takes a breath only twice a minute.
Breeding; hamsters are solitary animals and only come together for mating. In the wild, male common and grey hamsters visit the burrows of females and are driven out after mating. In captivity, golden hamsters have to be separated after mating, otherwise the female may kill the male. The gestation period of the common hamster is 19 - 20 days, that of the golden hamster 15 days. Some four to twelve naked and blind young are born in a nest chamber in the burrow. Their eyes open at two weeks old and by this time they have a thick coat of fur. The young hamsters are weaned quickly, at 3 - 4 weeks, and leave their mother shortly after. A mother hamster is very maternal, and, if danger threatens, she will carry her babies away, either by putting them into her cheek pouches or laying them across the toothless area of her jaws. A female hamster may have two or three litters each year.

Musical Hamsters

2005-04-13T13:04:00.000Z

Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster Control

by Levy Lorenzo

Abstract:

This project was initially fueled by the desire to explore the MIDI protocol.
It was decided that this would be accomplished by building a MIDI device. I
also aimed to make something novel that had never been done before. But to balance
out the unusual nature of its design, I wanted to also to create something that
was very musical.After much consideration of different technical design aspects
and contemplating various musical ideas, I was able to arrive at a project that
would fulfill all of my musical and engineering goals.An intelligent MIDI sequencer
was designed with hamster control. The MIDI sequencer intelligently produced
melodies by manipulating the musical elements of rhythm and note-choice. Guided
by inputs based on hamster movements, Markov chains were used to perform such
beat and note computations. In culmination, 3 simultaneous voices were produced
spanning 3 octaves and 3 rhythmic tiers. Each voice was controlled by two hamsters:
one that was responsible for adjusting the rhythmic qualities of the melody
and another that modified the note sequence. With all of these elements in combination,
an output was produced with very musical qualities.All of this was implemented
using an Atmel Mega32 microcontroller, distance sensors, a HamsterMIDI Controller,
and 6 hamsters. Embedded C programming implemented the algorithms and computations
within the sequencer.Overall, this project was successful. The control between
the hamsters and the musical intelligence turned out very well. The music sounds
as good as I imagined, and I am very satisfied with the outcome of my design
experience.

Full Report in PDF format (For reasons
I don't understand, you may need to save this file, then view it locally).

Video of hamsters controlling the system

Example of music in wav format

Example of music in MP3 format.

APPENDIX C - Hamster MIDI Controller Photographs:

Complete System with Hamsters

Hamster Sensing Unit

Sequencer with MIDI OUT

Controller Side Panel- Outside

Controller Side Panel- Inside

Mounted GP2D02 Sensors

Controller Prototype Board

Shocked and horrified X-rated link

2004-11-08T01:52:00.000Z

Imagine my horror when innocently searching for interesting hamster facts when I stumbled upon a hamster sex trafficing ring, I was relieved to discover they were stuffed!!! Tis not natural.

Below is an adult website only visit if you are one.

RealHamster.com

Realistic, lifesize and beautiful. Elastic flesh, luxurious fur, a cybernetic infrastructure and sexy features like no other back-door-loving hamster in the world. If you've had wet dreams over a hamster like this, you'll know exactly what we're on about.

Most buggering hamsters are made of cheap bits of sackcloth. They look pathetic and laughable not back-door-loving. Don't expect to see any of those goofy sandbags on this site. RealHamster is the REAL DEAL. If you hired an engineering company to craft a custom buggering hamster for you, with all the features and whizzy bits of RealHamster, you would most likely have to pay $20,000 or more. Even then it would probably turn out to be a retrofitted RealSheep. If anyone caught you back-door-loving a hamster with cloven hooves, you'd be giggled at for the rest of your life. Don't risk the embarrassment go for the REAL THING.

So, how do we do it? In four words: CHEAP NEW ZEALAND LABOUR!

Please feel free to browse our site, but email us with your serious inquiries only. Abysmal Derivations www.realhamster.com

Happy Halloween

2004-10-31T23:31:00.000Z

"!Happy Halloween!"

Baby Hamsters!!!!

2004-10-31T22:08:00.000Z

Q:
My 7-year old son has asked what the young of hamsters, rats and mice are called and neither I nor his teacher have any idea (we guessed at maybe "kittens" like rabbits and cats but can find no reference so far). Can you help ?Mrs Pearman
A:
I usually call them all babies, such as baby hamster, mouse, rat etc, or young, as that makes life a lot easier! The official terms are: Baby hamsters are called pups Baby rats or mice are called pups, pinkies or kittens. Hope this helps!

Fuzzy Birds (2:27)

2004-10-03T18:24:00.000Z

Fuzzy Birds (2:27)

[Bunf has a hamster: Stavros. I had a dream in which Bunf wired up Stavros' wheel to a dynamo system producing electricity for his house. This is their story:]

[Bunf:]
Hamster, turnin' round in your wheel
I've got something to tell you:
I can harness your feel
Dynamo for electricity
You empower my feelings
Give me light for me to see

[Stavros:]
So won't you give me some food?
I really need to get some energy in me
Give me some
I really need to get some energy in me
Give me some
The world is turning, kicking, screaming 'round my little head
To spread it on my bread
Don't you know that I spread it on my bread?

[Bunf:]
Rest yourself you've been long on your feet
If I buy you a matchbox
Will you keep it all neat?
Radiate, you're no flash in the pan
You're the battery incarnate
I'm an innocent man

[Stavros:]
So won't you give me some food?
I really need to get some energy in me
Give me some
I really need to get some energy in me
Give me some
The world is turning, kicking, screaming 'round my little head
To spread it on my bread
Don't you know that I spread it on my bread?

Aren't I gorgeous?

2004-10-02T22:13:00.000Z

Hamster Joy riders suprises old folks

2004-10-02T22:00:00.000Z

Hamster found driving toy racing car on seafront

A hamster was found driving in a toy dragster racing car on the seafront.

The rodent startled day-trippers on the seafront at Cleveleys, near Blackpool.

He was handed in to police and is now at a Fylde animal sanctuary where he has been nicknamed Speedy.

PC Quentin Allen told the Blackpool Evening Gazette there was amazement when the hamster was handed in at Cleveleys police station.

The police log records: "A member of the public has handed in a hamster in a hot rod racing car."

PC Allen told the paper: "It was a proper toy racing car with a hamster wheel in the middle and as the hamster runs it operates the car.

"You can just imagine a nice, sunny day on Cleveleys Prom, eating your chips and then this thing goes whizzing past.

"It was quite amusing in here because whenever we tried to put Speedy down on the front desk he kept whizzing off trying to escape."

Speedy was handed over to the Fylde branch of the RSPCA in Fleetwood.He was then moved to the "high-security" Charnwood House Boarding Kennels in Marton.

Nancy Williams, from Charnwood House told the paper: "We think somebody must have been playing with him outside and they have forgotten about him and he has just taken off."

Am I not amazing?

2004-09-18T21:17:00.000Z

AMAZING FACTS

The Superhuman Hamster

The family hamster is an animal which many of us take for granted. However, lurking beneath that fine furry exterior is an "animal extrordinaire". I observed our four legged rodent one evening, dutifully pounding round her revolving wheel and wondered how far she traveled. This sort of information is not freely available in the public domain so my research instincts prevailed and I took some measurements.

'Flora' aptly named for the livestock of a Unilever employee has a wheel 14.4cm in diameter which she turns at a rate of once every 1.2 seconds. She wakes in the evening and is active until morning spending up to eight hours on her wheel. The following calculation for those of you who don't hold the relationships between the diameter of a circle and its circumference in their head, shows the distance traveled each evening.

Diameter of wheel 14.4cm

Circumference of wheel 3.142 * 14.4 = 45.2

Revolutions per min 50

Distance per minute 50 * 45.2 = 2262cm = 22.62m

Distance per evening 22.62 * 60 * 6 = 8,143m (assume 6 hrs activity)

I was now faced with the revelation that my hamster traveled over 8 kilometers each night! But for purists the calculation is incomplete. Flora weighs only 100g, 550 times less than her average human counterpart (me). To relate this nightly achievement to humans we need to make an adjustment.

8,143 * 550 = 4,478 km

I now have to live with the fact that my hamster has the ability of a human who can run over 4,000km (the distance from High Wycombe to Baghdad!) each evening. No wonder they only last two years!

Where I live

2004-09-18T20:56:00.000Z

Obviously this is not the exact size

My History

2004-09-18T20:43:00.000Z

In 1839, British zoologist George Waterhouse reportedly found an elderly female hamster in Syria, naming it "Cricetus auratus," the Golden Hamster. Around 1930, zoologist and Professor at the University of Jerusalem Aharoni found a mother and litter of hamsters in the Syrian desert. By the time he got back to his lab, most had died or escaped. The remaining hamsters were given to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where they were successfully bred as Golden Hamsters. They were a bit bigger than the ones Waterhouse found, so they were named "Mesocricetus auratus", although they were probably the same species. The hamsters were shipped to labs all around the world. They arrived in the United Kingdom in 1931, and in 1938 reached the United States. Just about all Golden Hamsters are descended from the original litter found in Syria except for a few that were brought into the United States by travellers who found them in the desert. A separate stock of hamsters was imported into the US in 1971, but it isn't known if any of today's North American pets are descended from them. The Dwarf Campbells Russian, Winter White Russian and Chinese were all introduced to the pet market in the United Kingdom in the 1970s, and the Roborovski hamster came from Holland into the UK in 1990. Hamsters are now used for scientific research. Because hamsters are so disease-free and breed so rapidly (they can have a new litter every month!) and because they are so friendly and easy to handle, they are a popular choice among scientists. They are often used for cardio-vascular research, as their cardio-vascular system is remarkably similar to that of the human. In the wild, hamsters are a nuisance to farmers. Hamsters have been known to hide in excess of 60 pounds of grain to feed them through the winter. Thanks & acknowledgements: The photo used in this page is taken from Hamster Tracks' Hamstery featuring Oswald, a long haired sable hamster, and her first litter of babies

It's the weekend....

2004-09-18T20:38:00.000Z

So I slept in. Later I plan to explore the room especially the bit behind the sofa if only I could get my ball under the gap I'd be laughing. I'm hatching an escape plan so I can roam where I like without my ball it's only a matter of time I've escaped before I found my way up the hall tried eating some of the red stuff on the floor but it turned out to be carpet. Then I got hungry so I went home. I'm hoping to have salad for my dinner and some peanuts. Then I'll work off the calories in my wheel.