A Calgary animal rescue is scrambling to find homes for 35 hamsters after a woman unknowingly brought home a pregnant hamster from a pet store.
The Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) says a community member reached out earlier this month after the situation quickly got out of control.
“There was a couple of issues where they chewed out of their enclosure and got back in with each other,” AARCS director of animal care Amy Cope told CityNews.
“So unfortunately, they did continue to reproduce, and then she had more litters and then all of a sudden she found herself with about 35 hamsters in her place.”
Some of the hamsters were born blind and deaf without eyes. According to a 1998 Oxford research paper, these are anophthalmic white Syrian hamsters, resulting from breeding two hamsters with the white bellied gene (Wh/Wh).
However, Cope notes that they still make excellent pets with great personality.
“The little ones with no eyes, they don’t really have much concept of day or night because you know a lot of their world is just dark, but they’re really more active.
“They’re out and about often, they’re social, they’re interested in … knowing what’s going on and getting that human interaction.
Cope says this quantity of hamsters in their care is out of the norm for AARCS, as it typically takes in about five every year.
AARCS is asking for donations that include 40-gallon aquarium tanks with lids, paper bedding — no wood shavings, hamster feed, hamster wheels, and apple wood chews.
Adoptions are available through the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society website.
With files from Dione Wearmouth