Get or Avoid?

[SandyT]

I need advice please.
I was in P@H today, looking in the adoption section. I saw a beautiful little girl there. Her backstory is that she's about 12 weeks old and 'has been in the store a while'. Apparently, she was in a batch before Christmas and there was an outbreak of Wet Tail. This little girl had been on precautionary treatment and is ok. Her nose looked a little bloody, the staff member said he'd take her to the vet.
Would you avoid this little hammie with a barge pole or do you she maybe less likely to get Wet Tail as she has recently-ish been treated.
Thanks in advance.

[cypher]

That's a difficult choice to make, I guess she would be covered by the vets there if she did develop symptoms? It would really depend on how you feel you would cope if she did get ill soon after you took her home, if you don't already have a hamster you wouldn't have to worry about contagion otherwise you would probably need to quarantine her.
Do you know how long it is since she's been separated from the other hamsters with wet tail?
If she's up for adoption now then she is probably clear but you can't really be certain.
I don't think anyone can really tell you what is the right thing to do in a situation like this, you just have to think it through & follow your heart in the end. Personally I would probably be inclined to take her on but that doesn't mean I would advise everyone to do the same thing, not sure if that helps much!

[SandyT]

Thank you Cypher.
To be honest, I would be devastated if I got her home and something happened to her. On a practical note, if she got Wet Tail, would I have to throw away all wooden things, even if they'd been Plastikoted or just toys and wooden bridges? That might sound callous/heartless and I really don't mean it that way.
I've been waiting to get my own special hammy for the past 6 months and for one reason or another it hasn't happened.
I'm not too concerned about her little nose as she could have just rubbed it on something but obviously Wet Tail is a biggy.
I'm not too sure how long she has been separated from the others. The batch came into store a week before Christmas and apparently 3 different stores were effected.
This girl, she looked fine, nose aside. Her bum and surrounding area were clean and dry, her fur in general looked in nice condition, not greasy or matted or anything.
I would have another good look at her. Her teeth may have been slightly more white than yellow, which I know isn't the best but I'm not sure if that's to do with being young still.
She was just woken up for me to see her, but her ears were fairly flat. I don't know if this means she isn't well.

[Pebbles82]

I think generally it's advised that if they have signs of ill health (and blood on the nose is that) it is best not to get them - she needs treatment still. Being taken home to a new environment and new cage is also stressful for them and any underlying illness may flare up with the change - this has happened to some people. Not a good start for you.

Maybe you could keep checking back and see how her treatment is going xxx

[SandyT]

That might be for the best. I'd love to have her but never having had a hamster before, I'm nervous enough already that I won't do a good job.
Hopefully she will get fully better and I can get her then.

[cypher]

If this is going to be your first ham then I think it's better not to take the risk, it would be really hard on you if something happened to her, I'm not sure how long you would have to wait but it would be nice if you could have her at some point.

Just for reference if you do have a sick ham anything that's been plastikoted can be disinfected so that's not a problem but any natural untreated wood, cork or anything like that would probably need to be disposed of.

[SandyT]

Thank you for the advice Cypher and for letting me know about the wooden items.
I phoned P@H and she'd been taken out the back, bless her. They suspected she had Wet Tail Her rear was clean and dry when I saw her but as I said, her ears were down and her nose was bloody.
It's made me think twice now about going there now because I'm wary of how well they will disinfect the tanks and the few bits they put in with them but there aren't really any other options here.
I don't know how healthy a ham would be if it was lucky enough to survive Wet Tail.

[cypher]

I'm sorry, that's really sad, I do hope she pulls through ok but I have no experience of wet tail so I really don't know how well a ham can be if it does recover from wet tail, I believe that there is always a chance of lasting damage so long term health may not be good.

I can understand how you feel about getting another ham from there now, I think anyone would feel uncertain about it although the chances are other hams would be fine but I can imagine there would always be some doubt in your mind.

Do you have any small independent pet shops near you? Some times they can be a bit hard to find but when I was struggling to find a ham a very long trawl through google did turn up some shops I never knew existed so that might be worth a go. Smaller independent shops do sometimes source their hams from smaller breeders so there is a chance they may be healthier than from a large chain store.

[MaryRobinson]

Definitely agree with Cypher re. smaller breeders. We have just lost Dora, who we adopted from an owner who purchased her at large pet chain and she had health probs the vet indicated could come from inbreeding.

Check out the list of UK breeders: https://hamsters-uk.org/joomla30/ind...nding-breeders

[SandyT]

Thank you Cypher and Mary. I'm not really aware of any independents that sell hams. Though I did recently see an independent that sold other small animals and it was shocking. I must be either very naive or very stupid as I didnt think places were like that anymore.
I definately think after reading what you said Cypher, I shouldn't get the one I saw. It's a real shame, she was beautiful.
I've looked at the breeders list before and annoyingly must have only thought there was one page. Last night, I saw a local breeder on there and was so excited, especially when I saw pics on their FB page. Unfortunately, they stopped breeding at the end of last year.
I could go to a further afield P@H but they didn't want to sell me one before because I'd be travelling on public transport and they were concerned the journey was too long and be too stressful. Having said that, I'd have my cage set up this time and have a proper carry container with a house and lots of Fitch.
Silly question but when you get home, how do you get them out of the carry container into the cage? I wouldn't want to scare/stress the ham anymore.
Thank you again.