Valerie, April 19, 2006
I am appalled by all the false information on your page. Being a small animal breeder most of my life, I know about 80% of the “facts” on your page are wrong wrong wrong!
General Small animal information:
Breeding Practices and Diseases:
On your hamster page, you say that “taking babies away from mom before 6 weeks will make them more susceptible to wet tail”. Any owners who don’t know any better could do that and *whoops* all their babies AND mom are pregnant before they ever should be. In fact, hamsters and other small rodents (mice, gerbils, etc.) should NEVER be bred before they’re at least 12 weeks old for health reasons. Studies have shown that rodents that are over-bred (result of keeping males and females together) or bred at an early age have much shorter life-spans due to unneeded stress of the litters! Not to mention that it’s like your 12 yr. old kid having babies (something that can cause so many complications that it’s not even funny.)
And another thing: unless they are dwarf hamsters (Roborovskis, Campbells, Russian dwarfs, and Chinese), hamsters should NEVER be housed with another hamster! Not only are Syrian hamsters very much territorial, they are solitary except during mating, and even then they separate pretty quickly once the female is pregnant. And speaking of pregnant hamsters, they do NOT tend to be more aggressive than the non-pregnant ones. Yes, you want to be careful and mostly leave her and the babies alone, but if she knows you very well (another reason not to breed before 12 weeks or later) then she will act pretty much the same as she always did towards you.
Diets:
Hamsters should NEVER be forced to eat ONLY “Lab blocks”! They NEED their “variety diet” of seeds and other things provided in products such as KayTee hamster and gerbil food. Lab blocks should only be used for mice and rats, and that is in addition to a seed/vegetable diet!
Mouse Information:
“If your cute little pet mouse escapes, it becomes a wild mouse in a few days.  Keep your mice well covered.  They’re determined little escapers.”
Not true! Pet mice (not ones caught from the wild, but bought from a pet store) are quite content to live in their habitats, provided there are enough things for him/her to do. And domestic mice do not become a “wild mouse” ever. In fact, they tend to die within a few days, due to the fact that their natural instincts are mostly bred out of them (including their ability to resist diseases).
“Males will also whup up on new females.  Females are less territorial but will often tear into new females.  If you mix populations, you will cause lots of needless fights.  Rats will argue when you mix them, but they seldom fight to the death.  Rats like to wrestle for dominance, but they don’t eat the losers.  Mice, on the other hand, are killers.”
Males generally will allow new females to come in (due to their wont to mate). Females won’t “often tear into new females” in fact none of my mice ever have (and no, I’m not just “lucky”). Rats DO end up killing each other when they fight IF it isn’t intervened in time. Mixing female mice won’t cause “needless fights”, but putting male mice together will. And once and for all, mice are not “killers”.
“You obviously like mice more than I do.  I don’t like the way they smell.  I don’t like the way they bite.  I don’t like the way they destroy food.  I don’t like the way the males leave a little trail of urine where they run.  There were no dead mice on that page.  The pinkie crawled inside that peanut shell on its own.  No mice or other rodents were harmed or mistreated in the making of the Mouse Page.  Get over it. “
First off, mice don’t smell if you clean their cages properly and leave one item that has some of their scent on it so they don’t feel they have to mark their cage all over again as much.
Second of all, mice don’t generally bite. I’ve been bitten by hamsters about 40 times (approximately) and only “nibbled” at ONCE by one of my mice and that was only because I made a mistake and my hand smelled like food (and it didn’t even break the skin, imagine that!). Males of all species “mark” their territory, which includes male mice. And they don’t leave it all the time, only when they feel something needs their scent (like the insides of the cage or their special human friends).
And about Leah’s page: she’s right, you’re wrong, get over it and use her page to replace yours. Mice deserve the same respect as a cat or dog.
About Ball Pythons:

1. They are too biters. I don’t personally own one, but my boyfriend has one and he has been bitten several times in attempts to remove it from his cage.
2. They do NOT “ball up” when scared, they “ball up” because they’re in what herpers call “mouse mode”, meaning that he’s hungry and he/she thinks that you’re either food or going to provide food.
3. “Ball pythons often come to pet shops directly from Africa.” Ok, stop right there. That is the main reason that any reptile should never be a pet. The fact that most of them come from the wild is the reason that many species are starting to become extinct!
4. “Always provide a hide box.” They do not need one at all. They are perfectly content with a specialized “branch” to climb on and a clean corner to sleep in.
5. “If you feed your ball python live prey, whack your rat before you give it to your snake” Many ball pythons never get big enough to eat any size of rat. And snakes should NEVER be fed live prey. Not only is it painful and traumatizing for the rat/mouse/rabbit to die this way, the snake itself can become seriously injured (and not because of “balling up” either.). Plus, you should NEVER “whack” a rat or any animal. If you did that to any other animal, you would have the ASPCA on your business and you would be put in JAIL!
6. “Excess water gives ball pythons a blister-like skin infection that often proves fatal.” Not true. That would be from BAD water, such as polluted.

Needless to say, you should either take your page off the internet permanently OR take it off and do some research BEFORE putting it back up!! Any new pet owner could read this bullshit and take your advice and end up with a dead pet thanks to you. Do you want that on your conscience?