Oh, wow, Pingbot, that is pretty scary

But I think that Cecona may be right about the meatless diet. Because rodents actually do eat meat, and they need the protein from it. In nature gerbils or hamster or any other rodent that we keep as pets, they eat worms or other insects. Pure protein. I'm not sure the food we give them has enough of it, and maybe that's the reason.
But when the animals bite the cage it usually means they're bored. At least that's what I heard/read/was told/and also according to my experience.
As to horror stories (I don't think this counts as one, but...), I once had a fish that jumped out of the aquarium and I found it about few days later, dried out on the floor... It was awful, I kind of don't like to have fish now, I'm the worst owner for fish
