RAC called to find missing hamsters in car

Staff were joined by RAC engineers who found 13 of the tiny rodents but two are still unaccounted for.

It's believed the two hamsters either fell out of a hole in the boot or may still trapped inside the car.

Leigh Forbes, head of the small animals section at Raystede, said: 'A lady called us to say she had 15 hamsters in her bath because they kept on breaking out of their cage.

'I told her to bring them but in the journey from Brighton all 15 escaped from the cage.

'She managed to find nine of them and put them in a cardboard box but six were still missing, all presumed to be trapped inside the car.

'At first she said she would drive to a garage but I told her she wasn't driving anywhere and if she did it would be an animal welfare situation because they were already stressed out.'

Instead the RAC was called and four of the hamsters were found under the central column near the gear stick.

Unfortunately, two of the hamsters, the mother and one child, were not

found and may have fallen out of the car through a small hole in the boot.

Staff at Raystede said the hamsters could still be trapped inside the car where they were likely to stay until they starve ed to death, but would cause a huge amount of damage to the vehicle first.

A pet shop had originally sold two of the hamsters as a same-sex pair but soon after they produced a litter of 13 babies.

Leigh said: 'To make matters worse it turns out they were Syrian hamsters which are very solitary. They can't be kept with others and can get quite aggressive.

'This means we now have to find 13 new cages for them, because they are all quite young at the moment and I've separated them into two large cages but in a week or two I won't be able to do that because they'll start getting silly with each other and fighting.'

She has warned people who are thinking of buying small animals to make sure they are properly prepared and also to visit a vet to ensure the animals are properly sexed.