Denizens of Lemmy, how did your hamster die?

My sibling's class was having a biology lesson on the circulatory system that day and they were supposed to open up the little hamster to watch his tiny heart beat inside its cracked ribcage. The teacher asured them that because of chloroform, the hamster wouldn't feel a thing. Sibling, horrified, bought the critter from the kid who brought it to school for the experiment for a quarter so when mom pivked us up that day from school, we had an extra passenger. Next day we went and got all the hamster paraphernalia we could pay for with our savings and set her up in my sibling's room. Two days after this, the hamster gave birth to a whole litter. Mom was very angry and disgusted, but it wasn't for long because, out of stress I think, the hamster started eating her young. She ate them all and next morning we found her dead stuck between the cage wall and the exercise wheel.
I was a sensitive child and this whole event added to my already exisiting CPTSD.
- They were supposed to open up the little hamster to watch his tiny heart beat inside its cracked ribcage.
  Uh, I'm sorry, what?
  
  It was usually a frog, but this particular teacher wanted her students to work with a mammal. #80's magic #nostalgia

I stepped on my hamster which not only ruined Christmas but led to my parents eventually breaking up. It wasn't a deliberate stepping, of course. Nibbles, bless his tiny, furry heart, had a habit of darting underfoot, a furry landmine in the living room. This year, he chose the precise moment Aunt Carol was launching into her annual monologue about her "special" sauce – a concoction that looked suspiciously like regurgitated beets – to stage his daring escape. My foot connected with his minuscule form with a sickening crunch, a sound that echoed through the suddenly silent room, louder than any Christmas carol.
Aunt Carol, mid-sentence, froze, her face a mask of horrified fascination. Nibbles, sadly, was no more. A tiny, crimson stain bloomed on the Persian rug, resembling nothing so much as a particularly abstract Christmas ornament. My mother, a woman whose love for small, furry creatures bordered on the obsessive, let out a wail that could shatter glass. My dad, ever the pragmatist, muttered something about "collateral damage" and reached for the brandy. The air, thick with the scent of pine needles and impending doom, crackled with unspoken accusations. It was a Christmas tableau worthy of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
In the ensuing chaos, as people scrambled to salvage what remained of the Christmas dinner, Dad, still clutching a corner of the tablecloth, lost his balance. He stumbled, tripped over my outstretched leg (I swear, it was an accident!), and fell. And, in a move that defied all logic and physics, he somehow managed to grab my leg on the way down.
The last thing I saw before the world dissolved into a blur of pain and panicked shouts was my father, sprawled on the floor amidst the wreckage of Christmas dinner, holding my leg like a prized Christmas roast. "Gotcha!" he yelled triumphantly, while pulling my leg. Just like I'm pulling your leg now.
- You, Sir/Madam, should be awarded a Grammy for this stunning story.
- You are one eloquent mummified raconteur. I loved how as traumatic as it was, you told it beautifully.

My sister wanted to hug it, but it was too tiny to use her arms, so she used her hands. I watched Sunflowers eyes popout....

One day I noticed he hadn't moved in like, a while. I opened the cage and went to pick him up, and he was hard as a rock. RIP Teddy.

It got out. My parents thought it was a rat, so they called my dog to get it. He did so gladly. When I woke up they told me the “bad news.” I was happy with it. That hamster bit.

Not a hamster but when I had gerbils, one had eaten half of the other. Not long afterwards the cannibal developed a severe middle ear infection which killed her even during treatment.

Hampy was a vicious little bugger so we only noticed he had died about a week after when mum went to clean out his cage. Little Russian White Winter super fast, you'd open the cage and he'd be attached to your finger before you could swear at him.

She escaped into the ceiling and refused to come back out. We left food out for her, and she would eat it, but we never saw her again. We heard her though, yipping and scuttling about on various ceiling adventures. Rest well Frank Zappa the Second.
She was a replacement for my son because his other one (Frank Zappa the First) got sick and died while he was on holiday. His mum swapped them before he found out, but when she did so she forgot what colour the original hamster was (mix of dark/light brown). We had to convince my son that hamsters shed their baby fur and grow back a completely new colour (ginger/white).

I let mine walk over a keyboard, and he practically typed out his suicide note.

The average hamster lifespan in captivity is usually only something like 1-2 years, this guy lived for like 4.
He was in rough shape towards the end, his fur was falling out, he'd pretty much set up camp in one corner of his cage and rarely left.
Eventually my mom decided to take him to have him put down. I strongly suspect that we may be the only people to ever request that at the local SPCA

Not to be a killjoy but they're such delicate creatures and people keep giving them to children while doing zero research about their needs. No wonder they keep dying weird deaths. 😭
- The tweet about the guy feeding cats to foxes can apply here

One day he was happy and healthy. The next morning he was cold and dead. I have no idea.

Had two hamsters (Calvin and Hobbes) growing up. Both just got old and sick with old hamster stuff. Their deaths happened exactly the same way: my mom reaches into the cage because they haven’t been moving much for a while. Their last act of life is to bite her finger as hard as they can, so she naturally flings them at the wall in front of us kids. Splat.

He was way too damn smart, a real escape artist. He opened the door on his cage. I wrapped a paperclip around it to add security. He still escaped.
Couldn't find him for a day or two. Heard him inside my bed which was not on a frame, so he chewed his way inside from the side. Gorged himself on foam and was fully blocked up. Died of intestinal trauma.
I couldn't keep him locked up, and he killed himself.

We brought back a hamster for our daughter without realizing she was pregnant. After having a giant litter, we gave them all away…or at least we thought we did? A day or two later, I saw a wiggling in the shavings and out pops a head. Our eyes locked momentarily before she dived back down.
Definitely the runt of the litter. Had all sorts of paranoia and cowered under things for most of her life. She was maybe a year old when my daughter came running up. "Guys, you gotta see Hester!" We rushed over and there she was, hanging from the bars at the top of the cage and swinging arm-to-arm across.
We were so happy for her, finally getting past her inhibitions and leading her best hamster life. Then she was curled up dead the next morning.
- );

My honorary hamster (a green anole lizard) escaped and was presumed dead. We found him and recaptured him over two years later, living on the spiders and other insects in my brother's basement bedroom and bathroom. He lived for several more years in captivity, and I renewed efforts to give him a variety of wild-caught food instead of just store bought feeder crickets. He died fat and happy of old age.

Not mine, but my sister accidentally kicked a tall floor lamp over in her sleep. It landed right next to the glass aquarium her hamster was in. It had one of those really bright incandescent 100w bulbs.
Poor little guy cooked to death like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Jamie passed away from old age and died peacefully in his sleep. He was my first childhood pet... RIP Jamie!! ❤️ 🐹

Non-denizens of Lemmy, how the hell did you even get here? From Mbin or Mastodon? In any case, this question is not for you!

Well... its eye fell out. And that didn't seem normal.

I only ever had one, and he died of old age! But he sure tried his best to clock out early!
I remember about three months in, I came home from school only to find him suspended from the top of his cage by his right hind leg. Rushed him to the vet, got minor PTSD when the doc tied his stump and told us "the rest of it will fall off soon," and we threw that cage away the instant we got back home.
After that, Crunchy (rough translation) had the whole apartment to himself, and he sure liked to run right in front of you as you were walking! Would have rather broken my neck than step on the little fella (which I nearly did a couple of times - the neck part, not the stepping on him part).
But he was very loving and cute, he'd climb up either mum or myself while we were watching movies or playing vidya, he'd nestle above the collar bone, and sleep there for hours. Even my cat loved him to bits, they used to sleep together under my bed. He'd help himself to popcorn, chips, fried eggs, cereal (because of course he was allowed on the table, equal rights), and he once bathed in my soup.

My dad put their cage in our sunroom during the night because they were making too much noise. Eventually the sun came out.
- I had to google what a sunroom is and I still don't get what did it die from
  
  Well it was more like a greenhouse in function. It became quite hot after the sun came out.
  
  Vampirism

My first hamster, Lucky, died of old age and was, as best I could tell, happy and pleasant to interact with. He was somewhere around 4-5 years old. Given that later hamsters did not fare so well, I'm surprised my first one had such a peaceful life.