[Ria P]

Originally Posted by cloudy

Is Rodneys behaviour typical of an elderly hamster? That is such a cute picture of him.

I don't really know because the only other hamster who made it to over 2 was Robo Gordon. Gordon fell off his roof one day, run down a burrow and died.
Our Syrian Henry died at 22 months but deteriorated a lot physically and wasted away in front of our eyes.
All our dwarfs died of illnesses and two were pts. Their ages ranged from 10 - 22 months.
Unfortunately, i don't have much experience with elderly hamsters.
I'm not alarmed by Rodney's behaviour in the sense that i feel he needs a vet because he doesn't. Not at the moment anyway.
I've had him for over two years and got so used to him wanting out of cage time every night that i'm the one who needs to adjust to the fact that he is old and maybe heading for the rainbow bridge. Rodney seems to be adjusting to old age ok and accepted it but I still set up his playground in the hope that he'll use it again.
Their short lifespan is the one and only drawback of keeping hamsters as pets.