Chip Profile Picture Gallery |
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Chip is the daughter of Butterbean and Spud. She didn’t manage to open her left eye when she was 14 days old and we took her to the vets who thought she must have received an injury to it, possibly from Butterbean picking her up to carry back to the nest. The vet managed to open the eye a little and advised us to keep gently easing the eye open. We tried doing this but it caused Chip a lot of distress and as soon as she was put down went around with her eye closed again. The vet thought that an operation might be possible in the future, and so we made the decision that we would keep her. If an operation is possible in the future that is great, however Chip does not seem at all worried about it and the only concession we make is to ensure when picking her up we approach her to make sure that she can see us so as not to alarm her. We decided on the name Chip after trying out various options that just didn’t ‘stick’. We called her Chip as she is Spud’s daughter and a ‘chip off the old block’, plus we kept the family link to potatoes! Chip is a very energetic and speedy girl. She is not at all nervous (surprising when you consider what we did to her whilst she was tiny!) but is really fast so we have to be careful when handling her just in case she makes a break for it. She is an excellent climber and loves swinging upside down from the roof of her cage. Chip is also loves chewing the bars of her cage, despite lots of fun things to do/chew on. When we put a cuttlefish through the bars of her cage in the hope that she would chew this instead, she simply sat on it so that she could chew the bars higher up without straining herself! Though she is still a baby, we think she is going to become a real ‘little madam’ as she already has such a distinct personality. She thinks nothing of telling us off by chattering her teeth at us when we examine her. Update: Today (18th September 2007) we took Chip to the vets who found that her closed eyelid is perfectly formed, but is just sealed at one point along the lid, keeping it closed. Chip is due to have an operation tomorrow to snip the sealed part open allowing her normal use of her eye. The vet also recommended this as she was concerned that if she was unable to open it properly, there was a good chance it could become badly infected at some point. Update 2: (20th September 2007) Chip came back from the vets today with two open eyes (admittedly, one looking rather sore). She has to stay in over night following her operation where a nurse bathed her eye and gave her eye drops every couple of hours. She is right as rain now, and immediately got to climbing around her cage, eating choccy drops, and doing other hamster type things when we got her home. Now we just have to bath her eye every few hours, put some cream in her eye and give her antibiotics once a day for a while until her eyelid heals. The last few photos of Chip show what happened to her when she got her little paws on a hamster chew toy we bought from Pets at Home. It was a green chew stick in the shape of a toothbrush. She spent an hour or so working on it and thoroughly enjoyed herself until we noticed that all the bits from the toy had got on her fur and turned her green! It was a funny sight, though luckily it came off her easily enough.
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Chip Statistics Type: Syrian Hamster - Short Mink Click the thumbnails below for full sized images
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