Belle's Story
This year, we are sharing the story of each of our 2024 charity calendar stars every month so you can learn more about the hamster behind the photo. Belle is our featured hamster for the month of August.
A couple of weeks before Christmas 2022, we saw that there were two Roborovski dwarf hamsters on a resale website who were being given away for free in a very unsuitable enclosure. We were determined to take them into our foster network because they were living in the same tiny enclosure and this carried a lot of risk for both hamsters.
Luckily Sophie was able to collect them, although when she got them home she discovered that one was a girl and one was a boy. This sadly isn’t uncommon. The vast majority of pet shops do not know how to determine the sex of a hamster and will sell them in pairs only for them to mate a couple of weeks later, leaving the buyer with unwanted litters.
We named the two robos Jingle and Belle (we love a good Christmas theme!) and split them into their own individual cages immediately. Unfortunately we were too late, Belle was already pregnant. Jingle was brought to a new foster home and eventually found his forever home, thanks to Sophie’s mum!
Sophie made sure Belle was comfortable until she had her babies on the 28th of December 2022. Eight little jellybeans were born (dubbed the Valentine litter) and one by one they all went off to their forever homes. Romeo was the last of the eight to be adopted and was over a year old by then. Sadly robos are not as popular as the other hamster species and it can take us quite a while to find loving homes for them.
Belle was adopted by Steph in March 2023. Steph had been planning to get a really big hamster enclosure for a long time and could think of no hamster more deserving of such a large home than Belle, who had been a fantastic mother to her little ones and now needed a place to call her own. Sophie built Belle’s new enclosure with a huge 11,800cmsq of floorspace. Belle has been living her best life ever since then. She’s a feisty little one, not afraid to snatch treats whenever she gets the opportunity. She races about her enclosure, searching every nook and cranny for food, and of course she adores her wheel! We’re so happy Belle found her happily ever after!
If you’d like to support our rescue work, you can make a donation here.
Next month, learn about little Fawkes!
