Meet the Mitchell's

I am MaryJane Anne the webmaster of the domain. I run the Mitchell house as the head honcho homemaker queen of the castle. We have

a party of four members of the family. 

   Andrew Garlic Mitchell was born 4/02/2020 around midnight. After losing my cat Velvet Molly Mitchell, I was eager for another pet.  It was  during the pandamnit when I couldn't find a cat any where. Many folks stated I shouldn't be incontact with any one in person to get a cat because everyone was supposed to social distance. I was in a household alone. A little grey one with hints of darker grey stripes was born in my apartment building. 

     Andrew can count up to three by his "fist bumps". He loves pressing his paw to my hand. Some say not to play with a kitten or cat using your hands. Andrew when he was little would nibble my hand. If it hurt, I would say "ow ow" and calmly withdraw my hand. I would say, "Gentle". He understands my pain tolerance. If i move my hand like prey, Andrew will run and "fist bump" and lick my hand.

Phil Donahue was adopted December 2023.  He seems to enjoy being pet. He is very small for a Syrian. He is mostly fur. People say so far with the few pictures and video I took, he looks happy. I just got him recent. I love him a lot.

*Update: I gave Phil Donahue some treats and was petting his back. He rested his chin against my hand. I thought that very sweet. I won't be taking Phil to the park like I did with DukeM. Hampters have different personalities. DukeM was bold and not much bothered him. I don't think Phil Donahue would enjoy traveling out of the house. Not all hamsters like to travel. DukeM seemed to enjoy it very much. Phil seemed more chill and social once I figured out his favorite foods and treats. For most hamsters, they way to their heart is their belly.

Update Again:

     For many years, pet stores have been selling inadequate enclosures for hamsters. They need much more floor space than previously known. They need a deep amount of bedding to burrow in like they would in the wild. Although colored tunnels are really cute, many hamsters end up getting hurt in them because hams are often bigger than the manufacturer realized. Many enclosures are way too small with no space to burrow. Thanks to Aunt Ramona, (That’s Phil's Aunt. Ramona and I treat each other as sisters though there is no blood relation.) Phillip Donahue has a great enclosure. She was kind enough to give me a loan for it. I am keeping Phil's old tank. I don't think inadequate enclosures should be destroyed unless they are not safe or a hamster can escape it. They can be repurposed as a travel cage to go to the vet, used to keep an eye on a sickly ham, a place to put them when one cleans thier bigger enclosure, or they can be used to give the hamster a safe place to explore a different area to get a change of scenery. They can forage if one scatters food in substrates or bedding safe for hamsters. This is called, "scatterfeeding." It is great enrichment for them. Phil would rather forage for food. If I try to give him a bowl of food, he will throw the bowl in anger and not eat as much. I saw one dude on X who found a hamster in his backyard. He had to get a temporary place to hold him until better arrangements could be made. He got a "CritterTrail" which do not make good permanent homes. Domestic hamsters cannot survive in the wild with out human care. It was either that or no cage. Sometimes people take hamsters as last minute rescues and they come in inadequate permanent homes. Upgrades can be made but the old cage does not have to be thrown out. I take Phil out of the bedroom for a few hours a night in his travel cage at least once every other day. Once I missed a few days. He stopped running in his wheel. He would only come out to use his potty, eat, and drink. Other than that he stayed in his burrow. I called his name, and the little dude came out to see me! He started running again and grooming out in the open. I realized how important it is to him that I pet him and let him be in his travel cage. I also realized I can call him out of his burrow almost everytime if I want to pick him up. I hold and pet him at first before he goes in his travel cage. He gets a special treat. He will sit on my arm while he eats. Sometimes he stuffs it in his cheek pouch. Hamsters in the wild spend a lot of time foraging for food. They bring it home in thier special cheeks that can expand like a third or quarter of thier body size. When he gets in his travel cage, he unloads his treats to bury some. Then he spends like an hour searching and organizing his hoard. Sometimes he eats a bit of it. Sometimes he restuffs his cheeks to bring food and goodies home.       
    Hamsters will chew at the bars of thier cage if they need more space or something is wrong. For a couple of hours, he will seem quite happy. Grooming, napping, drinking. Hamster stuff. Sometimes he doesn't want to be there longer than fifteen minutes. A couple of times he chewed at the bars. Every time I tell him I will take him to his bigger "home," and I do right away. Now he just wraps his mouth around the bar instead of chewing the bars to give me a sign to take him home. I can usually tell when it is time, he will pace a bit.
    Many people have said not to purchase hamsters from the major pet chains Petco and Petsmart. There is no real evidence of thier actual methods I am aware of. Some say the hamsters are breed unethically and kept in small boxes for transport. Every hamster I have gotten from Petco was a super sweetheart. So very tame. I do not know how they are breed. There are no hamster breeders available on the net that I know of in Michigan other than pet stores. Hamsters are solitary animals. The only time they are together is when a mom is raising her litter and to mate. Even when together just to mate, there is a chance the hamsters will fight, and they have to be separated immediately.  Breeding hamsters can not be done by anyone. They say not to buy them to add to the demand. So these creatures are born here and need good homes. Hamsters only live to be a couple of years old. If anything, Petco has raised very tame animals. I think it is ok to buy from the stores. We must speak up to these companies and let them know that we want ethically breed hamsters. If it costs more money to do so, so be it. Phil was only like $25 to $35. I never bought a Hamster from Petsmart. I bought a mouse named, "Tinkerbell." I don't recommend doing this unless you know what you are doing, but Tinkerbell used to roam around my home. When I brought her home, "out of the box" she would sit still on my hand and not run away. I almost had to retrain her that she could roam free. She was so tame, she came back to me when I called her. Everynight for months, I'd go to bed. I would hear her climb up the side of the bed. She crawled on my head everynight, rustle my hair to make a little nest, and we would sleep the whole night.

    I am sensitive to certain energies of certain beings. In the future, I bet hamsters will be more affectionate. They have only been domesticated for about a century.  Cats and dogs have been domesticated for thousands of years.  Hamsters can be pet. It seems more than they tolerate it. They seem to love it. Hamsters give off a vibe different than cats or dogs. Owning a hamster and my cat Andrew makes me feel whole. 

Update: 5/23/2025:

About a few weeks ago, the fourth member of the family arrived. This is the most amount of beings to exist as Mitchell' s living together. *He* is another hamster! His name came as "Hamtaro." That is the name of the hamster in the popular anime of the same name. His coloring is much similar. To my amusement, a nice lady who gave him to me said, "His wheel sounds like a coffee maker so we called him, 'Mr. Coffee." It does sound like coffee is perculating. Sometimes I call him "Mr. Coffee" and say as he travels to the wheel, "He's going to make coffee."  As tradition he got a middle name. I named him, "Hamtaro Wigglesworth Mitchell." I got middle name inspired by the Sheriff of Holt, Michigan. I remembered he was my Daddy's good friend. It just fits too. "Ham Wings" for shorts.

He was brought with a cage many on the internet have stated that it would not make a good permeant home. At first glance I thought Hamtaro would prefer Phil's tank. I meant to keep the old one. The tank had what I thought was more floor space and room to borrow. His old enclosure is taller than wide resemblance of a rocket ship. Many on the net say wider is better than taller. That is not always the case. I didn't realize at first there is a spot at the top where he could walk around in. It has tunnels. They are jointed in short spurts so if he got too big and stuck, I could get him out easy. I don't think he is going to grow much bigger. There are a couple of shelf space platforms for him to chill on.

I put him in the tank and he burrowed. He didn't stay in there long. He likes to sleep in the open. I put in a good wheel. After a day or two he tried to escape non-stop. All my other hamsters only did that when their wheel got stuck. His wheel was not stuck. So I put him back in the rocketship. He never tries to escape on it and he doesn't chew on the bars. Many on the internet say, "Hamsters are not good climbers." They are not the best, and I suspect some love to do it like Hamtaro does. In the wild they don't have cage bars to climb or I would imagine not much to try with. Hamtaro seems much happier in the rocketship than in the tank. If I open the door, he almost always comes to the door and just waits. If I put my hand out to him, he might climb on my hand and sit on it. He won't dash out of his cage! He just waits by the door like all my hamsters did. He warmed up to me quicker than any hammy. My logical mind told me to let him settle down from the car ride a few days before I tried to pick him up. His former owner said she didn't hold him much. She didn't have him for a long time, he is young, and she was not used to handling hamsters. I felt in my gut I should scoop himbs up like a professional wrangler to let him know his new owner is good at hamster handling a few hours after he got here. He nipped a little after a few minutes of handling and pets. That is usually a sign they want their cage. He is very sweet. I buried food for him in hamster safe coco fiber (which they say hamsters enjoy the texture) in his travel cage. He seemed very much happy to dig for food and eat it. He had food in his cage. Some from the travel cage was stashed in his cheeks. I think his appetite was stirred because he was foraging for food. He is the most active hamster I ever had. He is even often awake making coffee in the middle daylight hours. Hamsters are known to be most active at dawn and dusk.

Remembering DukeM who has passed on:

     Duke Morsel was Christened as such around March of 2022. Morsel can be defined as, "Mouthfull" or "Very small." As in "A Morsel of information." We call him DukeM or Duke for short.  Himb was named after the player in the Band "Garbage". 

     He is a Hampster. More like Lap Dog meets potato. He will roll over on his back and let me rub his belly. He never turns down a petting. Hampsters are a lot more chill and they are much more domesticated than previous years. There is much information available on the web now. I bought Duke at my local Petco in Frandor.

I longed for a pet I could travel with for ages. My physical stamina would not allow for a dog. Andrew could use a bigger carrier and might enjoy a little travel. I'd start small distances. Duke loved his travel cage. Often I left the door open as in my YouTube channel, yet he would not dash out of the cage but slowly as if asking permission. If he wanted to he could escape my grasp or cage so easily and there would be nothing I could do to keep him. A lady at Petco said paraphrasing not to reach for a hamster as a predator would clutch a prey but show them your hand first. I accidentally did this once and he wriggled so quick out of my hands. We would go to the park near sunset. I would show him to strangers and they often said he looked, "Healthy and happy." He would eat, chew on a toy, run in his wheel, and rarely paced about his cage. He sighed frequently when eating. His whole body would heave up and drop. Traveling with Duke meant to me like I was like showing my kid in public. I was proud that I took good care of him. I'd imagine if I was raising a teenager, I would be happy if they were healthy and happy and I took part in helping them. I'd take my teen to the park. I never gave birth to a child ever. 

As I sit here typing with mah wee Babes, my heart is full.