I used to have two hamsters as pets. They were adorable creatures. Their little bodies and lovely expressions were incarnations of cuteness. Whatever they did was a feast for my eyes. One thing I hated about them, though, was that they often smelled bad. From time to time, I had to deodorise their den and to use a special kind of sand to clean their bodies. One of them was female; the other male. I had supposed that since they were opposite sexes, they should get along well. I was wrong.

One day when I was cleaning the two creatures, I found a lot of wounds in the male’s body. Oh, that was so cruel. As the days and weeks wore on, the female hamster got fatter and fatter than her male counterpart. While the female was dining, the male just stood by. He did not dare to touch the meal.

I took them apart, putting them in two houses. After some days, an amazing thing happened. A litter of 7 hamster babies were born.

After I did some searches online, I learned that a female hamster tends to become aggressive and attack other hamsters when she is pregnant. One fact that left me aghast was that a mother hamster often eats her babies if she is hungry or if they smell too much of humans. The discoveries helped me to look after the creatures in a better way. Still one day I counted the babies and found one missing. I could not accept the fact that it had been eaten alive by its own mother. The knowledge sent chills down my spine.

Gradually the babies grew fur. My parents gave most of them away to their friends after they were old and strong enough. I took care of just one until it died of natural causes.