Mammas!

When I was a child, we had gerbils for a brief period--it may have been a couple of months, it may have even been a couple of years, it's all a blur. They had babies at some point and then, the babies were dead and partially eaten. Then I think one of them died. I can't really remember what happened to them after that, actually. I was never really fond of the gerbils. I liked the idea of them (they were cute), but the reality of them (rodents) made me uncomfortable and the cognitive dissonance this caused my young mind was even greater than the cognitive dissonance caused by the idea of parents eating their babies. I must admit, as an adult, I find the idea of rats more squirm inducing than the knowledge that filial cannibalism is practiced by a wide variety of species.

I showed the above video to Julian and explained this is why we will never get hamsters. He doesn't believe the video.

"We had a hamster in 3-6 and she had a baby, she had five babies, and she didn't eat any of them. And then the next week she had five more and she didn't eat them. So, HA!, she is a liar."

However, there are the cats to consider and while Julian may not believe that hamsters eat their young, he completely understands that cats eat hamsters. Elaborate plans involving hanging cages and ladders have been proposed, but then he agrees the cats will likely outwit him and the hamsters would not survive.

Poor little hamsters.