Critters

54 photos across 6 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

SizeSmall 6 Large 11

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

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Ferret

Loki went into the blanket at one end and emerged somewhere else entirely.

FrostyOtter · 5 days ago

Beige chinchilla

Dusty takes his bath extremely seriously and redecorates the entire room every time.

FrostyOtter · 6 days ago

Black sable ferret

Bandit went into the blanket forty minutes ago. This is the first confirmed sighting since.

FrostyOtter · 6 days ago

Black velvet chinchilla

Shadow finishes a dust bath and then sits perfectly still, letting the cloud settle around him.

FrostyOtter · 6 days ago

Albino ferret

Marshmallow has stolen the blanket, dragged it off the sofa, and is now guarding it from me.

FrostyOtter · 6 days ago

Blaze ferret

Damson VI is examining the biscuit and taking notes. There is a boat in the tea and she has declined to comment on 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.

The kitchen scale that catches illness early
Small pets hide illness until it is an emergency, and weight shows it first. What to weigh, how often, and what a drop of five per cent actually means.
How to photograph your pet
Light, height, focus and patience — what separates a good pet photo from a blurred one, and how to handle black cats, white dogs and animals that never sit still.
Coats, and what each type actually needs
Single, double, wire, curly and hairless coats need completely different things. Why you never shave a double coat, and why a mat has to be cut out.
Dental disease, and why bad breath is not normal
Most dogs and cats have periodontal disease by three years old, and it is almost entirely silent. What it does, what actually prevents it, and what to avoid.
What the extra weight actually costs
Around half of dogs and cats are overweight, and lean-fed dogs live nearly two years longer. How to body-condition score, and how to feed for it.
Leaving a pet alone
Some breeds were made to be companions and cope badly by themselves. How long is reasonable, how to build up alone-time, and when it is a panic disorder.