How do you educate irresponsible people?

Bbhami · 10-04-2015, 05:48 AM

Here I am, on a quest for looking for a hammy in need when I chanced upon an online listing of russian hybrids for free.

The seller has a 'winter gold' baby so I expressed my interest on the ham and asked for pics. She sent me a photo of the mom which is light brown and a photo of pink jellybeans. Then she proceeded on saying that she has over 10 jellybeans per cage (and God knows how many cages she has). I tried to reply neutrally while trying to tell her it's not good for the mom and babies if she keeps on breeding them. She kept telling me her hams lived until 3yrs so it should not be an issue.

As much as I want to slap her or get angry, I want to know how I could change her mind about breeding hams. Is there any nice way to say it? She could easily ignore my messages if I'm too aggressive. :/ Any suggestions?

Wanna Hamster · 10-04-2015, 05:51 AM

I also have that problem a lot. I sometimes send links to forums like HC or good articles on hamster care. Or, you could randomly drop hints in your posts or messages to her!

WinnieTheHam · 10-04-2015, 08:31 AM

She needs to think more about the animal welfare, they don't care how long they live, all the hamsters care about is if they have a fulfilling life with lots of love and special care. Overbreeding is stressful and is really bad for their health. If she wants to still breed her hamsters then it's probably a good idea to try and get her to sign up to HC to be more educated, because she seems like she lacks knowledge!

Piebald · 10-04-2015, 09:43 AM

Why is she breeding and giving them away for free? Is she breeding for showing?
I suggest before you can make helpful suggestions to her you need to understand her motivation.

BrainGirl · 10-04-2015, 10:45 AM

Maybe ask her what her goals are as a breeder so you can have a better idea what expect from one of her babies if you adopt from her?

Bbhami · 10-04-2015, 10:57 AM

Uh she's breeding cause she kept a male and female hamster together and they started having babies. I tried to tell her the health risks of breeding from a small gene pool and the stress it causes to the mother. She was very confident to tell me she never had any problems with her hams. OTL that's when I gave up.

It's ironic she even put on her ad not to use the hams she will give for breeding and dont use them as reptile food. I told her what she's doing is no different than letting reptiles eat your hams you only make their deaths slower and more painful when you overbreed them. Then she said, reptiles kill your hamster right away while she can make them live longer. Oh wow. It's like talking to a rock. Maybe even talking to a rock is better. These type of people are so frustrating, nothing gets through them until they kill their pets.

BrainGirl · 10-04-2015, 01:07 PM

I was just going with Piebald's suggestion and trying to use that as a starting point for a conversation. I didn't realize that the conversation, such as it was, had already happened. Sad

Piebald · 10-04-2015, 08:00 PM

Oh dear sounds like a real problem. How old is this person?

Thin Lizzy · 10-04-2015, 08:11 PM

She needs to stop this, it's not right to keep breeding hamsters over and over.
I don't like her reference to live reptiles and how they kill the hamsters right away but with her they'll live longer.
Keeping 10 per cage is cruel. How can people like her get away with it?