Lulu our lovely lady

Lulu has left us for a better place.

Yesterday (27 Feb) we still saw her actively foraging around her cage and playing with her favorite tissue. At night, she looked visibly weaker and tired. I took a photo of her and posted to instagram:

I never expect that would be her last photo T_T

We brought Mimi and Lulu back to our home on 17th March 2012. Lulu looked more aged and bigger so we guessed she was about 2 or 3 months old by then. She outlived Mimi and finally walked her path on 28th February 2014.

Thank you for the two years with us. Mimi and Lulu are my first pair of hamsters and they are so sweet.

I felt enormous feeling overpowering me even though I had prepared for her passing. I cried for every pet that passed on, including pet that is not my own.

It was not easy to take care a critically ill hamster. We have seen three different vets for Lulu's chronic flu from September until November 2013. She was finally stabilised in December with occasional small recurrence. We were trying so much to put her back on weight after the vet's recommendation while she's recovering well from flu. Many hamster owners on Instagram have been very helpful, generously giving many tips and advice in the way that I can never imagine. Thank you all.

We love you Lulu, so so much. We will miss kissing your forehead, telling you we love you, every day.
This is the amount of time you spent with us:

We love you for 23 months, 1 week, and 4 days, your whole life time.

We buried her at the beautiful park, the same place as we buried Mimi 9 months ago, a nice place that faces the fountain of the park. We played Medicine Buddha and Avalokitesvara Boddhisattva's prayer songs accompany her burial. We are also glad that this time we managed to tell Lulu at her last moment that she's a good girl, and we will meet again in another life.

Be close to Buddha's path and be enlightened.
Om Mani Padme Hum
Tadyanta Om Bedkanze Bedkanze Maha Bedkanze Randza Samung Gate Soha

New hamster Coco and Lulu's update

It's been too long we didn't update here.

On 26 Oct 2013, we welcome a new hamster named Coco into our family.

He is a Sapphire dwarf hamster and is still very nervous around us, won't let us touch him. He smells pretty bad from his scent gland as well.

He grows into a big fat hamster within a month and enjoys sitting on his balls (lol) in the corner of the cage.

Lulu is getting pretty frail lately. Her 'flu' has been on and off, and she's been on medication on and off as well. Yesterday she hurt herself by crossing over the Habitrail's house, getting her leg stuck, hung on the edge of the partition for we-don't-know-how-long. It's really heart-breaking when we checked her out before we went to bed. She didn't even make any sound.

Lulu becomes smaller in size, and her lower half is very skinny. She still fills her pouches with lots of food, we hope she really eats them and not just storing them for no reason.

Need to keep a very close eye on Lulu. She's now with us everywhere we do our work in the house.

Lulu with her dress.

May our little angels be well and happy.

Lulu loves mashed potato

Mama and mummy were busy, and Lulu seems to enjoy sleeping longer than usual... considering her age we take that as a sign of aging :(

Today we cooked mashed potato, and mummy couldn't finish it. Considering there are hamsters that love french fries (we don't give that to Lulu), we try to give her some mashed potato:

Lulu awaken almost immediately after she smells the food.

And she really loves the potato!

I tried to move the spoon away, and she stretched out her arms to hold the spoon XD

Finishing the last bit of mashed potato :)

The mashed potato is homemade healthier version so there is no butter, but it's really tasty, using this vegan recipe.

We all love potatoes <3

Feeding Lulu medicine

See description at the Youtube video :)

Lulu and her poor dress

We bought Lulu a mini dress because larger size is not available. As a result Lulu the fat fat couldn't squeeze through the dress, even after she removes all food from her pouches.



Longer edition of the video is cut into 3 parts:
Part 1: http://youtu.be/Zn5cY1x_Fts
Part 2: http://youtu.be/mP9CJuP8j4M
Part 3: http://youtu.be/GoanfmScUCI

Lulu is actually not a fat fat

For the past two days we suspected Lulu was having a wet tail, so we brought her to the vet expecting some quick diagnose and get medicine.

But the first thing the vet said was: "the first thing I notice here is that why Lulu's food pouch so big? That's abnormal". And then both of us were like "Really??? But we thought she's fat and she has been looking like this for a very long time!".

To our horror, the vet suspected Lulu's food pouch was infected because of constant storing of food.

I will post the video up after I have time to edit, it was like an endless loop of stored food "vomiting" out of Lulu's mouth as the vet pushed the food out from Lulu's cheek. Mummy got freaked out and anxious so me and the vet asked her to go outside. Looking back at the video Mummy still screamed.
When about 60% of the food were out, we could smell the foul rotten food :(

Greedy greedy Lulu!

Anyways, this is how Lulu looks like now:

Exhausted after being "squeezed"

Mummy says she looks like she has gotten a new haircut XD

Now she looks just like any other normal hamsters!!! Apparently her pouch was oversize with extravagant amount of food T_T We have no idea T_T

How she looks like when she had a humongous pouch:

What a huge difference!!!!

So Lulu is now on 0.1ml antibiotic once a day, and seems like she does not have any wet tail symptom, we have changed the wood-shred bedding and even cage for her.

Happy to have Lulu the cute greedy hamster as our daughter <3 We will watch her food intake from now on. Mimi was not this greedy so she never had the wide-face look :)

Mimi and Lulu on mobile phones

The quality is really bad, but can't resist as they look cute no matter what! :D

Lulu on Mummy's lap. Look at her fingers XD

Mimi bite bite!

Lulu mediate in her bedroom.

Mimi meditate at her corner

Mimi sleeping with one leg stretched out.

Lulu bit the paper aggressively. We transferred her to the cage because Mummy is worried that  Lulu has become obese. The bar cage will give her more space to work out.

Continue bite bite.

When Mama tried to take the paper away, Lulu rushed and tried to grab the paper by mouth, LOL

They switched cage :) Mimi sleeping in Lulu's bedroom.

Lulu found a new favorite spot: sleeping under the House :)

When Mimi showed her frustration staying in the Pokeball, and we realised that she didn't know how to drink from water globe, finally we decided to buy her a new house on their 1 year anniversary with us (last month).

However, Mimi does not appreciate the two-tier house, and the wheel is so small, one of her leg would accidentally step into the air as she runs.

But she could finally know where to drink the water. So that's  a good thing about this cage.

Mimi awaken by cage opening noise (when Mama attempting to take this photo).

Wanted to take a photo of Lulu sleeping under the shredded papers that she created, but she was awaken by the cage opening noise as well, hehe. 

Broccoli again

Mimi munches on broccoli <3

Lulu was also very focused on the big clove of broccoli <3

Always their favorite food (asides from my breads and cakes <3)

Merry Christmas from Mimi and Lulu

Lulu's season's greeting

Mimi wishes everyone a Merry Christmas 2012!

Fat fat does not run on the wheel

Lulu has quit running for quite some time now. And she is obviously more obese than before. We try to encourage her exercise more by buying her an extra space ship. But she simply goes into the space ship to get more wood pieces for her bedroom.

Lulu you need to run more!

Mimi and Lulu have been with us for 9 months now :)

8 months with us

Mimi was eating, Lulu was staring at camera :)

Our adorable babies <3

Previously Mama baked a pumpkin bread and the hammies seem to like to eat a lot. So for their 8th-month-versary, mummies planned to bake another pumpkin bread for them^^

This time it is a pumpkin-applesauce bread. They don't nom it up a.s.a.p. like the last time, but still finish their portion of bread nonetheless.

The idea of this photo shoot is risky. They seemed get along well in the beginning. Mimi proactively approaching Lulu,sniffing her face as close as possible.

And then, Mummy was fearing that Mimi was about to make an attack, so swiped her off the ramekin dish.But then Lulu abandoned the bread and sniffing Mimi instead. Mama felt like the rendezvous is a success. However, as soon as the DSLR was put down, Mimi bit Lulu and the two bit on each other, wouldn't let go. Mummy got bitten by Mimi a little while separating them up :(
Mama put socks on top of Lulu to stop her from getting up or attacking back Mimi. Lulu didn't struggle much and just laid on her back and closed her eyes.

Looks like Mimi is more aggressive and is in menopause now. Hopefully when her menopause is over, the two of them can live together peacefully :)

Mummy decided to give Lulu a gift, given that she's gaining a lot of weight and seldom run on the wheel nowadays. Initially bought a Habitrail mini rails. But sadly Lulu cannot fit through the tunnel! OMG! When we returned to the petshop, the shop assistant is also shocked that how could a Winter hamster couldn't get through the tunnel. That's so freaking funny XD

So we bought her a space ship instead :D

Spaceship side view

Spaceship bird-eye view

The connection from the Pokeball to the spaceship :)

Mummy and Mama love these two babies so much! May Mimi and Lulu be happy and healthy always~ Om mani padme hung

Lulu the fat fat

Criminal shot 1

Criminal shot 2

Criminal shot 3

Criminal shot 4

Lulu has officially became The Fat-Fat without our much awareness back in September.

Mama is the culprit as she doesn't have any experience in looking after hamster. The story is that Mama thought Lulu finished everything off her plate very quickly, and in fear of starving the cute little furry ball, Mama gave Lulu same amount of food 2 times per day everyday.

The result is a Lulu that is almost triple the size of Mimi. Mimi never finished off the whole plate in one go. Mummy reveals the truth that "Hamsters store their food away!!" So Mama was misled into thinking Lulu finished the food faster while the truth is Lulu stores all the seeds inside her "bedroom"! Mimi does not do so, she simply covers her food with wood flakes.

So now Lulu is only given one feed per day. And she still peels the sunflower seeds quickly and puts all of them into her mouth, and then stores in her bedroom, thinking Mama might give second feed upon seeing the plate is empty =w=

Our pocket pets

Mimi the pocket pet

Trying to get out

Our cutie~

Lulu hanging on the pocket with two arms out XD

Fufufu

Ever adorable fat fat

Idea for photography comes from the vet description :D Aren't they cute?

Lulu the fat fat and Mimi the gold digger

We give food in the morning. And the hammies would be alert of our appearance before their house, standing up looking at us waiting for the humans to feed them. Once the plate is served, Lulu focuses attentively to the food, and nothing else.

Watch until the end for her ultra cute close-up XD

After having minimal food, Mimi keeps digging her mines for Buddha-knows-what, occassionally looking up at the human or the camera, and ninja-ing onto the cage and biting the bars. And then fell down on purpose. Simply too cute.

The videos are taken this morning :)

Today Mimi and Lulu are with us for 6 months, they are a bundle of joy :)

Hammies on strawberries

Mimi

Lulu

They are basically biting the strawberry slippers XD

Hammies in dark pink lace

Lulu

Mimi

I am trying to improve my photography skill and start to explore Lightroom. But the outcome is still not as I expect it to be. Need more practices!

Long hiatus and a berserk hammie

The past two months were not easy for human. Many things happened to the hammies as well.

Before posting series of cute photos of Mimi and Lulu, Mama has to report here that Mummy was bitten by Lulu the criminal hammie on 5th August, causing Mummy's finger swelled up to double its usual finger size, and had to visit human doctor to cure T_T

The criminal:

The verdict:

4 teeth bites!

The different sizes of Mummy's fingers

OMG, Lulu the poisonous Hammie!

What happened was, as usual, we tried to put the two hammies next to each other and see if they can get along well. This time, Mimi was inside her cage, and Lulu was outside of Mimi's cage. Sometimes they would smell each other with bars in between them. This time, Lulu's reaction was strangely aggressive. She tried to attack Mimi who was inside the cage. So Mummy decided to put the berserked Lulu back into her own cage, but she bit Mummy instead T_T

Aigooooooooo why Lulu whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy sob sob :"(

After swallowing whole set of antibiotic Mummy's finger is back to normal again, but the four bite scars remain. Lulu's bite scar on Mama's middle finger (happened few months back) is still visible today!

Rage hammie, bad hammie!