Hey everyone it's Riley so it has been a year since I introduced Olive to my channel and the
video I made about that was really crappy as well as my audience was a lot smaller then and I mean
no wonder but anyways today I'm updating that video and making a meat Olive 2.0 because Olive
is just too cute to not star in one of her own videos so let's just get right into that
so this is Olive and she's actually not my hamster this is my sister's hamster Olive
is around a year and a half old now making her pretty elderly because hamsters really
only live about a year and a half to two years old if you didn't know already but she's doing
very very well in her old age she's a Russian dwarf hamster so most likely a hybrid between
a Campbell's dwarf and a winter white dwarf and she is the most independent hamster I've
ever experienced she really doesn't benefit from human interaction would just prefer to be left
alone most of the time we can pet her but she just really does not like being picked up and
we deal with that and she seems perfectly content without very much human interaction
we got Olive back in May of 2021 and here are some clips of the day that we got her she just looks
so much younger and chubbier in these clips it's very adorable but you might be wondering why Olive
is in a Crittertrail cage here and if you don't know Crittertrail cages and small cages like these
are not suitable for hamsters of any species but this was only a temporary enclosure and I'll just
quickly explain the story of how we got Olive so that this all makes a lot more sense so basically
I walked into the pet store like all hamster owners do and the first thing I do when I get to
the pet store is I always go to the small animal section and this time in particular there was this
very very chubby almost overweight looking little black dwarf hamster there and that was Olive
I also noticed that her nails were very long and I had some experience at that time clipping hamster
nails with my hamster who was named Elfie sadly he passed of July of 2021 but anyways I knew that
I could help this little dwarf hamster right here and I asked my parents if we could get
her and surprisingly they agreed but she would be my sister's hamster so that day we went out
to two different Target stores to go and look for a bin cage to make a suitable sized cage
for Olive but we couldn't find them at both of the stores we went to so we just kind of had to call
it a day and Olive spent only one night in this Crittertrail cage right here not even a full day
it was just one night and the very next day my mom went out to yet another Target store found
the right bin cage and we moved Olive into that the very next day I'll just show you guys that
setup that we moved her into into the bin cage and honestly this was a really crappy setup it's super
bare I thought it was fine at the time but our cage setup skills have certainly improved that
has also come with my sister just accumulating more and more hamster items but anyways this
setup was just bare and boring she's got a hideout on the left a platform on the right
a very small sand bath and a seagrass tube just super boring this was a very bad setup in general
so compared with that last setup that I just showed this is Olive's current setup
of July 2022 and it just looks a lot more enriching and full in my opinion
she's got a lot more areas to hide a bigger sand math
a bigger sand MATH
SAND MATH
SAAAAAAAND MMMAAAAATH
and more toys in enrichment that my sister has made for her so compared to that last one this
setup is just a whole lot better for Olive Olive's enclosure is 450 square inches of floor space
which I know is the minimum for hamster enclosures but Olive has not shown any like I mean any stress
signs in this cage whatsoever and in general has just not shown any behaviors that would show that
she needs a bigger cage she's never even attempted to escape and to add to that she is an old hamster
who is showing just a bit of decreased activity levels and so this enclosure works very very well
for her and she seems extremely content with it another thing I wanted to add just because
it's relevant is that she has about seven to eight inches of bedding on one side of the
cage that she absolutely loves burrowing in and two inches of bedding on the other side
we celebrated Olive's first birthday back in May of this year and I guess that wasn't really
her birthday but more like the day we got her my sister made her this adorable little cake and I
posted a shorts video about this but what I didn't show was all the bloopers from this clip because
Olive just kept on running out of frame constantly or she wouldn't eat the cake and it was kind of a
disaster but I think she enjoyed the cake for the few seconds that she ate it at least I hope so
altogether Olive's been a super fun hamster to have and even though she's not mine I still enjoy
her but she is getting very old and I'm hoping that she can continue to live her happy hamster
life and maybe make it to her second birthday but I really think that's all I have to say in
this video stay tuned because I am going to make an updated version of this video for my hamster
Crookshanks because his introduction video was so crappy like don't even go back and watch it I
honestly hate it but anyways I hope you enjoyed the video and thank you so much for watching