Critters

54 photos across 21 breeds

🐹 Critters — hamsters, guinea pigs, rats, mice, gerbils, chinchillas, ferrets, hedgehogs — get grouped by size and by nothing else. Their needs have almost nothing in common, and advice that applies to one is often actively harmful to another.

Syrian hamsters must live alone and will fight to the death if housed together; guinea pigs and rats are intensely social and should never be kept singly. Chinchillas need dust baths and cool rooms; ferrets need several hours out of the cage daily. The species decides everything.

🚨 What they do have in common is that almost all of them are prey animals with small margins. A hamster or a guinea pig hides illness for as long as it can and then declines quickly, so the window between the first visible sign and a serious problem is often a day or two rather than a week. Stopped eating, sitting hunched in a corner, a wet or dirty back end, laboured breathing, weight loss you can feel through the fur: all of those are same-day problems, and all of them want a vet who sees small mammals regularly rather than occasionally.

⏰ Lifespan runs from about eighteen months to twenty years across this one page, which is worth pausing on. An Astrex mouse may give you eighteen months. A golden hamster two to three years. A guinea pig five to seven. A chinchilla fifteen to twenty — longer than most dogs, and a commitment people take on without noticing.

🛏️ Housing is where most of the money and most of the mistakes go. Nearly everything sold as a cage for a hamster is smaller than any welfare guideline recommends, tall multi-level cages suit climbers and not burrowers, and the bedding sold alongside is frequently the wrong kind. Getting this right before the animal arrives is cheaper than getting it right twice.

Any breed Abyssinian guinea pig (3)African pygmy hedgehog (3)Albino ferret (3)Astrex mouse (3)Beige chinchilla (3)Berkshire rat (3)Black bear hamster (3)Black sable ferret (3)Black velvet chinchilla (3)Ferret (3)Golden hamster (3)Guinea pig (3)+9 more — use the search

Critters feed

SizeTiny 25 Small 18 Large 11

LivesUnder 4 years 14 4–8 years 23 Over 8 years 17

American satin guinea pig

Barnaby IX has the courgette in the barrow and is now working out how to get it past all of these lemons.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

American guinea pig

Teasel VIII checked in with a carrot, a corn cob and one apple, and would like them taken up. The ribbon is not her doing.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Alpaca guinea pig

Nutmeg 12 pitched the tent in the woods and the ducks arrived within the hour. They have shown no sign of leaving.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Algerian hedgehog

Tarragon VI came out from behind the curtain and put the whole props cart over. Opening night was going so well.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Albino hedgehog

Kipper IX sniffing the green one, which is exactly what he was told not to do. He built the cushion wall himself.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Abyssinian satin guinea pig

Onyx has curated one lettuce leaf and asks that nobody breathe near it.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Before you get a small pet

Check whether the species is social or solitary before buying a cage. Getting this wrong causes either fighting or loneliness, and both are serious.
Guinea pigs cannot make their own vitamin C and need a dietary source daily — the same is true of humans and very few other mammals.
Most commercially sold cages are smaller than any welfare guideline recommends. Floor area matters more than levels for hamsters and gerbils; height matters for rats and chinchillas.
Lifespans are short and variable: two to three years for a hamster or rat, five to seven for a guinea pig, up to twenty for a chinchilla.
Many are nocturnal or crepuscular, which makes them a poor match for a young child's bedroom and a fine match for an adult who is up in the evening.
Check the law before you fall for one. Ferrets and pet hedgehogs are restricted or prohibited outright in some states and countries, and it is not a rule anybody in a shop is obliged to mention.
Bedding and cage furniture are a real decision, not a colour choice. Pine and cedar shavings and fluffy cotton-wool nesting material cause respiratory problems and trapped limbs; paper-based bedding and plenty of hay do the same job without either.
A wheel has to be the right size and solid-surfaced. Too small and the animal runs with an arched back; barred or mesh and it catches feet and tails. For a Syrian hamster that means about thirty centimetres across, which is bigger than most cages ship with.
Every rodent and rabbit-adjacent animal here has teeth that never stop growing, and needs something abrasive to wear them on. Overgrown teeth are a vet job, not something that resolves.

General guidance, not veterinary advice. Anything about a specific animal is a question for a vet who has seen it.

Critters worth knowing about

A place to start rather than the whole list. Every name is a page.

Guinea pig
Social to the point that keeping one alone is a welfare problem, and one of very few mammals that cannot make its own vitamin C. Five to seven years, and needs floor space rather than levels.
Golden hamster
Better known as the Syrian, and strictly solitary — two adults housed together will fight until one dies. Nearly every pet Syrian in the world descends from one female collected near Aleppo in 1930.
Ferret
An obligate carnivore with the energy of a kitten that never grows out of it: several hours out of the cage daily, and a strict meat diet with no grain or fruit. Restricted or banned in some places.
Rat
The cleverest and most companionable animal on this page, and the one most unfairly dismissed. Keep two or more. Two to three years, with a high rate of respiratory disease and mammary tumours.
Chinchilla
Fifteen to twenty years, which is the headline. Needs a dust bath rather than water, a cool room — they overheat above about twenty-five degrees — and height to climb.
African pygmy hedgehog
Not a species found in the wild but a hybrid developed for the pet trade. Solitary, nocturnal, prone to obesity and to a fatal neurological disease with no cure. Illegal in several places.

Guides for critters

The subjects that come up on breed page after breed page, written out properly.

Gene pools, popular sires and closed studbooks
A great many of the breed profiles here mention a narrow gene pool. What that actually means, why one stallion can reshape a breed, and what to ask a breeder.
Heatstroke, and the first ten minutes
Heatstroke kills quickly and is entirely preventable. Which animals are at risk, the signs, and the cooling that current evidence actually supports.
Adopting a rescue animal
Rescue animals arrive without a history and settle on their own timetable. What decompression means, what the first three months look like, and what helps.
Ear infections, and why they keep coming back
Most repeat ear infections are not caused by water or dirt. What actually drives them, why cotton buds make it worse, and when it needs a vet rather than a bottle.