Meet Fidget, the hamster Houdini
HE is as determined as any PoW in The Great Escape and seems to have the skills of a Harry Houdini.
For Fidget the hamster has gone on the run ten times in the five weeks owner Seren Palmer, 11, has had him. He is not content merely with escaping from his cage.
Fidget disappears for up to two days at a time, always emerging through a hole in the kitchen ceiling, sliding down the extractor fan and plunging 5ft to the floor.
Seren’s mother, Amanda, even put a crash mat on the floor to cushion his fall. Mrs Palmer, 42, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, said: ‘How Fidget has been able to escape from his cage so many times is a mystery to us all.’
She believes he managed to push up the lid to get out. ‘He’s crafty, I’ll give him that. He finds his way through the floorboards upstairs and we have no idea how he squeezes through because there’s no visible gaps.
‘Then I’ll be in the kitchen cooking and he’ll suddenly wriggle through a tiny hole in the ceiling and slide down the extractor fan on the oven. That’s quite a height but it doesn’t bother him at all.’
The Syrian hamster’s Houdini days are now over, however, after the Palmers found a way to curb his thirst for freedom – a muchlarger, escape-proof cage with a wheel, sand pit, bed and several tubes for Fidget to play in.