and then there were two.

Oh my Oh my.
The lady at the pet store said we had 2 male hamsters.
The hamster porn and the hamster birth proved her wrong (don't trust pet world to sex your hamsters for you).

Let me back up a little bit.
After the Discovery Channel worthy episode of hamster hanky panky, I googled. First I googled "hamster genitalia" to see if the girl at Pet World could have made an honest mistake. I guess it's possible.
Then I googled homosexuality in hamsters (I was really hoping), not likely.
Then I googled the gestational period of hamsters. It's 14 - 20 days in case you ever need to know. I did the math and figured it was going to be close to the time we were going to be gone for the weekend in Louisville (last weekend).
In all my googling, I learned that it is not only common for the dad to eat the babies, but it's also possible the mom will eat them. Apparently if she feels like her babies are in danger, she'll eat them to protect them. As a mother myself, I can't quite fit that in my brain. But hey, what do I know. And as psycho as this mother hamster has proven herself to be, I was pretty worried.
I figured I better move quickly to at least get the dad out and reduce the possibility that the babies were going to be dinner. It's kinda sad that I was more worried about their parents eating them, than I was Tessa eating them.

We went through the whole thing of finding another cage (thank you Jessie) to separate the dad from the pregnant mom. We thought we would get this done before the babies actually came. We were wrong.
The Friday night before we were scheduled to leave, as Scott was fixing up the dads new house and preparing to move him out, he noticed we had little hamster babies. Four of them to be exact.
As ugly as they were, they were still kinda cute.
She gave birth in the "loft" of the cage. I'm not sure that's relevant. But it does make it a little easier to peak in on them (or so I thought).
It's been a week now. Momma has barricaded herself and the baby into the loft. She has so much bedding and food up there, you can barely see anything.
I try to open the lid every night and check on them.. But it's not always easy.
For the last couple nights, I've only been able to spy one baby hamster. It's the same one every night.. So please tell me where the other three are.. Did she really eat her own children. And if she did, she had to have consumed their entire little hamster bodies.. I can't see a foot or a skull or anything. There is no dead hamster smell (I know first hand the smell of rotting rodent). They've just vanished.
My hope is they're alive and burrowed into the firmly packed bedding of the loft. But reality tells me they are not.
So we're down to three hamsters. The mom and one baby in one cage and the dad in a neighboring second cage.
Or so we thought.
This morning Scott was up and getting ready for work. He came in and woke me up (see the previous post to learn how paybacks can be a bitch).
He says "one of the hamsters got out". I had a little hint of panic as I didn't want anything to happen to the mom because she's still nursing the remaining baby.
He sees my panic and quickly says "it's the dad" and "he's in the heater ducts".

Upon inspection, there was a small gap in the wires of the cage. Just big enough for him to squeeze through.. He survived the fall from the table to the floor, and proceeded to survive the fall through the grate of the cold air return of the heating system (no one ever told me I needed to open that up and clean it out before).
He then proceeded to fall of a ledge, just out of arms reach and into the duct work of my 100 year old house. If we stuck our head in and looked back, we could see him running back and forth.
Scott scurried of to work and left me to ponder how I could possibly get the poor guy out. Duct work is too smooth for him to climb up.
So the McGuyver in me, flung a towel over the ledge he had fallen over, thinking he could climb up it and back into arms reach. Then I popped some popcorn and put it on the ledge to lure him out. And put his exercise ball down in the vent (with more popcorn in it), and I headed for the shower.
As I was exiting the bathroom I heard a ruckus under the floor. Hmmmm.. That's a mighty loud hamster for only weighing a few ounces.
So I walked into the dining room and as I turned the corner, I see Tessa hopping out of the cold air return (that we had mistakenly left open).

Now there is no noise or movement coming from the ducts. I didn't notice anything in Tessa's mouth as she was guiltily jumping from the vent. But she has killed before.
So now we have a dilemma. Tear apart the duct work? Or let Tessa back down to finish the job?