Is a Hamster a good pet for companionship?

I have had budgies for a long time now. They can be taught to talk and they are good company. Fred and Dan were the best speakers but they were all characters. Over the years we have had Fred, Tweety, Zippy, Toots, Peter, Dan and now Timmy. They are not difficult to care for. Dan lived the longest - he died in 2011 at the age of 10 years. Timmy is our wee one now. He likes people to speak to him when they come to the house. This year we took him on holiday, as we have done with our other budgies.

I'm lucky that I gave made lots of friends through going to the Ladies' Fellowship, the Cardmaking Club, and the Cross Stitch Group. I am also the Secretary of the Fairtrade Group in the town. In saying that, though, I found it difficult to settle into living in a town rather than the village I was brought up in. I found that easier after my children were born. When they and their Dad were at school - their Dad was a teacher - I found that Fred was great company.

I think that it is important to have interests and pets.

What about volunteering at your local Cat's Protection?

Can't suggest anything re pets as everyone says having a dog which you have to walk is a good way to meet people locally but you aren't allowed pets! But having returned from living abroad, I have found it hard to make new contacts as people keep telling me how busy they are and that they don't have time to keep up with all the friends they already have. If you've lived and worked in the same place for 30 years that's likely but hard for those who have moved around for work or like you have changed circumstances..
But, a year on, I have found doing things - reading group, classes and voluntary work means I'm getting to know people gradually through shared interests. No pressure to be "friends" but warm human contact. Recently I met someone from my U3A bookgroup on the bus and felt I was Getting There

Good Luck - easy for people to say Socialise but quite hard to do

Listen carefully I will say this only wonce! Hamsters, white mice, rats and their ilk are vermin- exterminate!!!!!

Hi Teetime, you may well be right, but so is loneliness! So I'm happy to try and exterminate loneliness with vermin (not that I think hamsters are vermin at all).

Have you thought about an African Pygmy Hedgehog. They are amazing and live on fleece so no mucky cleaning out as they do their business on kitchen roll in a cat litter tray. I have 11 of my own and also run a rescue for them called Sleepy Hollow Hedgehog Rescue on facebook if you fancied taking on an older one.

Hamsters are OK Teetime - they don't have tails!! It's the tails that put me off; we had to look after DD's friend's rats when they went away, I just felt that they gave me malevolent stares every time I went past the cage!

Will anyone check up on you regularly, Jennywren1? If you had just a little cat ....
You could always say it belonged to a neighbour and had just walked in

rosequartz that's the same idea I was thinking about. Jennywren you could adopt a cat and like rosequartz says, pretend you thought it belonged to one of the neighbours (you don't know which one though) and the cat just kept wandering in, so you started to look after it. The only thing is whether or not you want a house cat or would let it go out. My friend fosters cats for the Cat's Protection League (she has cat pens in her garden) and I'm sure from listening to her that the CPL could find a suitable match for you - a cat who likes cuddles! Go for it!

Cats do that, don't they. Adopt other people and just wander in!

Definitely!

I felt very lonely and somewhat lost after retirement and 36 years of marriage that ended in divorce , I also lived in rental accommodation where dogs / animals were not allowed . A friend suggested asking my landlord if I could take on a small dog because it would help with my wellbeing , I asked my GP to write a letter supporting my request , my GP thought it would be better than any medication . I didn't look back , my landlord agreed, I got my very small dog , I walk every day , meet lots of other dog walkers and have a companion with me that gives unconditional love .

Where I live is very beautiful, but the down side is that it is quite isolated. My only neighbours are my landlords. I rent a flat above their garage/outbuildings. So they would know that the cat was mine! Unfortunately they do not appear to be lovers of pets of any sort, they have none of their own. AmeliaAshton, I know nothing about African Pgymy Hedgehogs, but would be interested to learn more about them.

I wouldn't recommend a hamster.
We had one that didn't like being handled , was noisy and bit!

Could you offer to do dog walking for anyone who can't easily get out to walk their own dog? some local places have schemes

What about the good old pet budgie or preferably a pair?

Lots of charities welcome helpers ,dog walkers ,etc .or you could pet-sit for people on holiday . Old neighbours might appreciate a dog walker too. I have an acquaintance who rehomes mice .....and they can be very sweet .

My son has brought his two guinea pigs home for the weekend. They are very sweet. Extremely cuddly. They do need an 80 cm cage though. And they need their newspaper changed every two or three days. They are little darlings.

Hamsters....live a year if you are lucky and are basically nocturnal.
You might enjoy offering to dog walk for a rehoming/rescue centre or cats ones like visitors who 'sit' with their inmates.

We've only had one guinea pig, which was given to us by a 'friend' who had lots.

We realised afterwards that we were given it because it was vicious. It was never a cuddly pet for the DC.

DD3 had a hamster when she was at uni. He was called Stella - after the beer. I seem to remember he was nocturnal and spent the night thundering round his wheel. Sadly he met an ignominious end when left in the charge of a fellow student during the vacation. Squashed beneath a size 12.

I have no rescue centres close to where I live, plus the reason for getting a hamster is to have something to come home to. It's the daily companionship that I feel I need. I am quite interested in perhaps getting a Guinea Pig. I always though that they needed to be kept in pairs? plus have access to outside space? Has anyone kept them solely as an indoor pet? I know for hamsters you can get exercise balls for them, can you get the same for Guinea Pigs? I would love to hear from anyone that has kept them as an indoor pet.

They do like company, so two are better than one. Two girls are best, but brother males who have known each other since they were tiny are OK. They don't have to have access to outside, but they do enjoy being on grass - they nibble at it happily. We used to put them out for a while in a run home-made from old floorboards with chicken-wire mesh across the topo and a piece of wood lying on top to give them a place to sit out of the sun or rain.The whole thing was about a yard square and six inches high and was easy to carry indoors.

You can get pellet food that is right for them. They can't sythesise vitamin C so they must have greenery or vegetables of some sort. Our Winifred really loved apples, she would squeal at you until you finished the apple and gave her the core.

If you get one of each, you will get a succession of baby guinea pigs! These are very very cute, and are born with all their fur and ready to run around and try eating adult food, though their mothers feed them for 2 or 3 weeks. They are ready to leave home at six weeks and if you keep a mixed family together any longer than this, you get unexpected guinea-grandchildren (as we proved)

They don't seem interested in exercise balls, or even exercise of any kind - they have little short legs so I suppose it is no fun in a treadmill. They scuttle around behind and under furniture and seem to enjoy sitting on your lap being stroked. Not all that intellectual but placid and sweet-natured. If you handle them frequently they get very tame and seem quite loving, but ones that have not been handled when young can get a bit annoyed if they are "messed about".

Hi Elegran, are they relatively clean animals. Do they chew furniture, carpets, wires etc. As I live in a rented flat, I cannot afford to have any damage occur. Especially as I'm not really suppose to have any pets.

They don't chew things, though I think they re classed as rodents - not sure about that. They have no tails, so are not at all rattylooking. You do need to clean their cage and change their bedding regularly, but that is true of all pets. They are relatively clean - their poo is little pellets, a bit like rabbits. Ours didn't have free run of the house, they were only taken out of their cage to have a run round under supervision, so if they did have a little accident it was cleared up at once - but there weren't many. some people give them the freedom of the house.

Interesting fact - they are alergic to penicillin. so if it had been tested on guineapigs, penicillin would have gone no further than the lab.

www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/rodents/guineapigs has a guineapig page.

We had guest guinea pigs for 2 weeks in August and they were lovely and got to know us well in the time, but they are not companions in the sense that dogs and cats are and hamsters are not companions at all. Sorry.