My Pet Hamster Eats His Own Poop.

A hamster is the perfect pet. It lives in a contained habitat, is small and velvety-soft and cute as a button. Hamsters don't have a lot of expensive needs, they're silent and odorless, they basically just sleep most of the day and act cute when they're not sleeping, and they're very easily tamed. And this might sound horrible, but - they're low-commitment - their lifespan is only two to three years.

(I realize that people who keep rodents as pets and who may even LOVE RODENTS are often seen as strange, nerdy, and potentially scary, and that's a risk I'm willing to take. In their defense - hamsters don't even have TAILS - well, they do have tiny little tails but they're not anything like rat or mouse tails - and may I also point out that cute fluffy bunnies are also rodents. THANK YOU!)

So, my hamster Skeepants: adorable!

But what I didn't know before getting a hamster is that they eat their own shit!

The first time I saw Skeepants do this, I freaked out. Beyond kinky... Skeepants has auto-coprophilia! I immediately searched hamster websites online to see whether that is normal behavior and it turns out that coprophagia, or the eating of poo, IS normal for hamsters. They eat their own poop because it still has nutrients in it, or something like that. (I call them his Now and Laters, like those candies we used to eat in Jr High.) They don't eat all of it, by the way. No, some little pellets of poop they hold between their teeth and then FLING outside their home. Yes, POO FLINGING.

So cute. So fuzzy. And he eats half his own shit and the other half he throws as far as he can, preferably OUTSIDE of his home, into mine!


Click here if you need to see lots of photos of Skeepants...