Hi, I'm the other half of Zika Hamstery

[Sam Zika]

Well, maybe I should say I'm the other half of the humans of Zika Hamstery. I'm Aly's husband Sam.

When we got married in December I did not expect hamsters to become a major part of my life. But Aly loves furry things and she convinced me that we needed a hamster. Then she convinced me that we needed another one. Then she became active in the online hamster community and started connecting with breeders all over the country. When she started talking about genetics, I became interested too. Very interested. After a lot of research, we decided to start our own hamstery, partly because baby hamsters are the most adorable things in the world. It's been a weird experience to suddenly become part of the underground subculture of hamster breeders, which I didn't know existed.

In another thread Aly introduced our hamsters. We love longhaired Syrians. To continue our longhaired silver grey line, we got Ilmarë from Pearl Hamletry. She brings in not only outside blood, but excellent genes. She comes from a breeder who takes her work seriously, and it shows. Our breeding plan is to mate Ilmarë with one of Mono and Beefalo's sons. We kept Seymour for that purpose, but we'll see if a male from the next litter might be better. Seymour has a good coat for a longhaired male, thicker than Mono's, but he's on the small side. For the next generation, around the end of this year, we'll be looking to bring in a longhaired male from another breeder, hopefully one with excellent size, type, and coat. Our ideal color for him would be yellow or silver pearl, so we can get some silver pearls and silver tortoiseshells!

[Esmy]

Hi, nice to meet you! I was excited when Aly introduced herself and your hamsters. Though bummed I didn't know about you sooner! I live about 4 hrs from you. Some day I would love to have a breeder baby (hand raised). I wish you both the best with your hamsters and welcome!

[alyzimm]

Hi Sam, good to see you!

Is it silly of me to post on this thread when you are sitting beside me? A little. I'm very excited to have you here, as this is the first time you've connected to a hamster forum.

I'm looking forward to the ways in which you can contribute and learn from this community!

[Hekomi]

Hi Sam! Maybe you can rub off a bit on my SO and get him on board with the genetics and what not, haha. He quite likes that, and we hope to make a hamstery in a few years.

Your hamsters are gorgeous! My SO actually doesn't like long haireds too much, but I think they're precious. All your hamsters are gorgeous!

[Sam Zika]

I'm a programmer. The way my mind works, whenever I discover that some complex, real-world system can be described by a simple, discrete mathematical model, I become interested in it. That, and baby hamsters are super cute. That's why I got into hamster breeding.