| April 21, 2005 Time to cry. We here at HamsterDance have gone from the upmost high, to the lowest low this week. Muffin did not keep any of her babies,so we will not know about her genetics for a while. The new hamsters are doing fine, but I think the hybrid my have something, carrying not showing, that is affecting my other hamsters. Snickers, my Moscow female passed away in the cage next to his. Calypso escaped and was found dead, Mouse got out again and has been even worse, and all the cages have too much ammonia to be normal. We are going to be totally shutting down HamsterDance for a period to do some DEEP cleaning, lots of testing, and paperwork. All the cages, toys, food bowls, water bottles, sandboxes and anything else in the cages are going to be totally bleached and sanitized before allowing the animals back in. Then, we will do some serious testing for diabetes as I believe some may have, namely the Moscows. We will also be doing personality and temperment analysis on each hamster to make sure the "mean gene" is totally removed from our project. In the mean time, all hamsters, minus the babies and the new girls, will be seperated. A friend of mine will take the hybrid and foster him until a home is found. Until we reopen, you will still be able to browse this site, it will not be updated until then. Bless you all, Feel free to email me with any questions you may have. April 16th, 2005 TIME TO CELEBRATE!! I was lying in bed and I heard the all too often sound of BABIES! I got up and checked all my cages, and lo and behold, there was MUFFIN!! Kibbles finally did his job! This is the best news to happen at HamsterDance since the arrival of the Greys and Moscows from California! This litter will be able to tell us what Muffin is. I believe her to be a BEA, but I'm not 100% sure. Since I got Muffin from a pet store, I do not know what colors she carries. Kibbles is a gorgeous lilac fawn from Linda's hamstery. Lilac fawn is BEA and Opal. Therefore, if Muffin is BEA all the pups will be BEA also, unless she is carrying opal. If she is carrying opal, we would expect 50% BEA and 50% lilac fawn. If we see normal babies, we know that she is not a BEA. She is agout patterned, orange, with black eyes. You can see for yourself on her picture page. If she is not BEA, what is she? We will soon find out! On another note, there are still babies available for adoption. I believe there are four blues available now to approved homes. The application page is not sending the forms to my email address, so if you would copy and paste the form you see after you hit the submit button to an email to [email protected] I will notify you ASAP if you are approved, schedule a time to meet you to pick them up, and sign the contract. Have a great day everyone! I will write again as things progress! Bless! April 5th, 2005 Hey everyone! I am SO sorry this has not been updated in a while. I have not had the cord to connect my camera to my computer so I have not been able to get the pictures up. I do still have some babies available, one moscow and a few blues. Still no other babies yet. I went to buy some supplies and saw a very nice male. He is white with black eyes, obviously dillute platinum, but has a light grey underneath the white. Not an opal, but a grey. I hope to pair him with Trixie, but for now, she isnt taking any visitors... I will update more in the next few days with plans, pictures, progress, ect. Unfortunately, I have all my tests within the next week so I will be very busy. Once done, I will put a lot of work into this once again. Thank you all so much for your continued support and patience! March 22nd, 2005 Whew! Sorry for the long delay everyone! I was on spring break and I did not have access to the internet! Lots of things have happened since we last talked! Snickers and Twix, my two moscows had a litter of four pups! Three girls and one boy. They are a week old today and are doing great! Also, it seems that Coal did not want us to be lonely without him, so he left behind to "buried treasure!" Silky delivered five babies that are now almost a week old! In fact, Coal did so well, they are ALL BLUE!! I had to take in two rescues because a little boy I gave them too decided it was too much work caring for hamsters... yeah.. anyway. I do have an official waiting list now, so if you are SERIOUSLY interested in one or more of my babies, please contact me! I love to help find my babies great homes. If you are unable to make the trip immediately, or if you need to save money for shipping but know you cannot live without one of my current babies, let me know. I will hold them if you prepay for them and a little food. Please include the colors you want, the genders, and any other information that may be of any benefit to me. I will not reply happily to one sentence emails wanting "one hampsters." March 8th, 2005 Its 2:45 am and it has already been a terrible day. I went to check on Silky yesterday and she is not yet pregnant. This morning around 1:30am, I woke up only to discover that Coal and Nessa have gotten out of their cages and were dead. We were expecting great things from them! I was so upset, I had to leave. So, I came to work on my website and relieve some stress. Coal was one of my favorites and Nessa was so valuable to this research. From here, I guess we will be putting Coal's daughter Onyx, with his only son, Blue to try and recreate what would have originally been planned with the expected two normal pups. I guess I am thankful that it was not Tessa or Gabe that had escaped. Nessa was a darling, but I think it would have been a bigger loss if it was Gabe or Tessa. I guess I became too comfortable with the fact that none had escaped in a long time since we moved them. Well, I get the hint. I am no longer comfortable, and they will be on top lock down to keep this from happening again. |
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| Genetics Journal |