Hazelhurst Cattery Tel: 0116 2895562

Honey, a show winning hamster herself, was mated to Hammy, a very long-coated honey-coloured, show winning hamster. She produced a litter of 12 babies in October 2004. Two of them were kept on, (Daisy and Dougal) with a view to continuing the very successful line, as they both carry the good nature and long coats of their parents.

Tye S/h Honey	Romeo S/h Honey D/s	Eros S/h Honey Rex
		Roslyn S/h Cinnamon D/s Tort
	Haikey S/h Honey	Sam S/h Honey
		Rachel S/h Honey
Baglin L/h Honey	Culverhouse L/h Satin Yellow D/s	Dorito S/h Satin Yellow D/s
		Ursa Major L/h Yellow
	Vieja S/h Honey Rex	Eros Sh/ Honey Rex
		When I said Goodbye S/h Honey

We have now bought in a young female (Betty), a dark chocolate coloured hamster who will hopefully introduce some darker shades into our breeding lines.

Betty has now been mated to Dougal, our large honey coloured long-coated male. She is due to give birth on the first of October.

Hammy L/h Honey	Harry S/h Honey	Hugo S/h Honey
		Dorothy S/h Honey D/s
	Daphne S/h Honey	Hugo S/h Honey
		Dorothy S/h Honey D/s
Honey L/h Honey	Tye S/h Honey	Romeo S/h Honey D/s
		Haikey S/h Honey
	Baglin L/h Honey	Culverhouse L/h Satin Yellow D/s
		Vieja S/h Honey Rex

Betty has now given birth to nine babies, and all appear to be doing well, but to early to determine sexes or colours yet.

At two weeks old, the babies are growing fast, eyes are now open and they are starting to move around. Their is one very dark one (booked), three chocolate couloured ones and four the same colour as their father (Dougal).

Now four weeks old and getting huge for their age. They are eating 3 large meals a day now. Their are 3 boys and 6 girls, now separated, some with long coats and some with short. They are all being handled several times a day now to make them nice and tame.

The babies now six weeks old, have mostly moved on to their new homes, but two have been kept on for future breeding. They are Holly and Ivy, two very similar, very pretty, long-coated, golden coloured girls with darker markings on their faces.

Two new hamsters have now joined us, Queeney, a very long coated large white girl, from show lines, and Toby, a dark brown and white long coated boy, who will hopefully make a good mate for Holly and Ivy.

Queeney has been mated to Dougal on the 6th of November, who should hopefully produce some large long coated babies on the 22nd of November. Watch this space.

Queeney gave birth to 7 babies on the 21st of November. All seemed well to start with, but on the 3rd December she had a prolapse, and sadly had to be put to sleep, which left us with 7 twelve day old orphans to try and rear. The vet said they had very little chance of surviving, but what was we to do? we could'nt just leave them to die, so with nothing to lose we decided to try and hand rear them. Despite seaching on the internet, no body seemed to have any information on how to go about this, or even know if it was possible from this early an age. So after mixing up some baby milk powder (one teaspoon of powder in 10 mls of water) and some Farleys rusks, we started to hand feed the babys with an eye dropper, just giving them as much as they would take, every 2 hours. They were a bit slow to take to this way of feeding to start with, but they soon caught on. We noticed that they were dehydrating, so to encourage them to take more moisture, we gave them finely chopped cuecumber as well. We continued to give them cuecumber right through rearing, as they always seemed to eat it. One day one of the babys stopped breathing whilst we were feeding it, but after some vigourous rubbing and shaking, it gasped and started breathing again, and soon seemed normal. After a day or two they were taking more and more milk, and starting to grow again. By the time they were 16 days old, we were offering them scrambled egg and cottage cheese as well, which was eaten avidly. By the time they were 20 days old, they were eating the smaller pieces of normal hamster mix, whole slices of cuecumber, and starting to take less milk. At 22 days them had stopped taking milk altogther, and were completley feeding on solid foods. One of them did give us some worries an she was considerably smaller than the others, her eyes took a lot longer to open, and we feared we would have to have her put to sleep because she was so far behind the others, but our patience and extra care soon paid off, and she is now as normal as the others. Another point we noticed, was that having no mum to teach them to how behave, they started fighting with each other much earlier than normal, so we had to split them up into seperate cages before they were 4 weeks old. They are now 5 weeks old (all 7 have survived) and are growing well considering their ordeal, and we have now found new homes for all of them.

Both Harriette and Daisy have now been re-homed to new pet homes, and Barney has passed away from old age (he was a good two years old).

Two more new hamsters have now joined us, from a new silver-grey line. Tinker, a rather nice very large male with a very quiet nature, and Phoebe, a slightly smaller but very pretty female.

Now the warmer weather is here, and the girls are coming into season, some matings have been done. Betty, and both Holly and Ivy have all been mated to Toby. Betty is due on the 5th of April and Holly on the 6th. Ivy is due on the 13th April. Hopefully the large size and good nature of Holly and Ivy crossed with the darker colour of Toby should produce some really nice babies.

Betty has given birth to seven large babies, and Holly has had a large litter of thirteen. Ivy had a phantom pregnancy and failed to produce anything. But Phoebe, (who it turns out, must have arrived here allready pregnant), has had a litter of twelve babies.

Betty's, Holly's and Phoebe's babies have all now moved on to their new homes. One Long-haired honey coloured girl has been kept on from Betty's litter (Rosie). And two silver grey girls have been kept from Phoebe's litter (Penny & Twopence).

Ivy eventually became pregnant to Toby, and gave birth to nine babies on the 27th of May.

Another new male has been bought in from show winning lines. Horace is a pure white bundle of fluff with a very friendly nature.

Rosie has been mated to Horace, which will hopefully produce some fluffy babies. And Phoebe has been mated to Toby, which should produce an interesting mix of colours.

We have repeated the very successful mating between Holly and Toby, which produced some quality hamsters from their first mating. And Penny has been mated to Horace, to hopefully pass on his long fluffy coat.

Cherry is the youngster kept from the mating between Holly and Toby, and she has Toby's markings and Holly's long coat.

Fluffy is the result of Horace's very long coat combined with Rosie's golden colour, which has produced this long haired blond boy.