My Syrian hamster Daisy lived to just over 4 yrs. He had a fantastic life though and was loved so very much. He had free-range time every day, and would be out with us watching the tele at night, and he had a 'hamster playground' in his cage. I firmly believe that hamsters can live for much longer if they get lots of time out of their cage, and have lots of different things going on in their lives. Obviously ill health is something we have no control over really, but sadly I think lots of hamsters live such short lives because they are just stuck in a cage for most or all of the time, and people often don't seem to realise just what great little pets they are who can also be just as entertaining and loving.
In the mornings the toaster seemed to act as an alarm clock to Daisy, and when I was doing toast for everyone at about 7, as soon as the first slice popped up it would be exactly 4 secs :lol: until Daisy appeared demanding his little piece. Daisy was sold to us as a female but soon developed 'balls' most guys would love to have :lol::lol: and it just seemed unfair to confuse the little guy by renaming him.
I had friends coming round one afternoon, and had prepared a cold buffet like spread, and Daisy's cage was on the table. My daughter can't have shut his door properly because when we came back from having to go out, Daisy was having a right feast in the middle of it all :shock: there were little hamster feet prints on the butter, and he had a stash of ham, cheese and bread in his cage, and was sat on the plate enjoying a cherry tomato :lol::lol:
Can I just say in case people don't already know that every Sunday, I used to hard boil an egg for Daisy, as apparently it is a very valuable source of protein for them, and they should have either some egg or a teaspoon of plain cottage cheese once a week. Daisy absolutely loved his boiled egg and would eat all the yolk first. I just used to give him half a egg, leave it with him for an hour or so, and then remove it, but there was never much to remove.