Member-only story
Remembering the Tiger Mother…of Hamsters
Trigger warning: This is gross.
Don’t blame me. RodentLife, this is on you. You gave me the idea by clapping for an ancient response of mine concerning guppies and hamsters.
My sister wailed a wail so piercing that it nearly shattered the cheap water glasses in the cupboard. She held up an index finger bitten straight through the nail and out the other side. Our father warned us repeatedly not to stick our tiny fingers between the closely spaced bars of Tiger’s cage, but my sister was one of those kids who just had to try shit like that.
Tiger was the only brood hamster we had who could reliably bring up a brood to the point where we could sell them to the pet shop for like 25 cents each. That is if we kept her well fed while she was nursing. Otherwise those tiny pups had about as much chance as puppy embryos in Astapor. But they had a better chance than her mates. I remember my father putting hamster fellas in with her, pulling on a heavy leather glove while all hell broke loose in that cage, then attempting to rescue the little guy before Tiger could realize she’d been boned and decide it was pizza time. He didn’t always succeed.
Sometimes in a couple of weeks we’d have about a dozen cute little baby hamsters to play with, other times we’d peer into her cage early in the…
