Brought home dwarfs... [Two girls to go... 09/15]

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Scythe

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2009
Messages
727
Location
Toronto, Ontario, Canda
So, bleeding heart that I am, I now have 6 dwarf hamsters. Three adults(2 female, 1 male), and three newborns. All were kept together in one habitrail( :emb: ) so I've split them all up and the one girl is on preggo watch.... The other I'm watching very closely because I've never seen hamster babies before! :giggle:

I have a coworker who already has dibs on a female, preferably one of the little babies, but she hasn't seen any of them yet so who knows. I also may keep the male, because he's so sweet. :sad3:

They are all very sweet dwarfs. I was honestly surprised when I fondled them countless times to figure out genders and all they did was squirm a little bit and lick at my hands. And boy do they lick! I wasn't sure what they were doing at first, but sure enough... :giggle: And here I thought hamsters were fur with teeth. Fur with tongues?

I'll post some pictures, later, I don't want to bug the mum too much. If anyone wants a hamster or has room for one.... :cheeky:
 
Oh, really? I was going to do research on their intros and gestations(so i can see the one isnt preggo) etc so I could see about that. I always heard about hamsters eating each other(At least syrians), so I wasn't sure about dwarfs. Do you know any pages on the net that have good information? I know most of the basics, but everything else I was going to figure out after work today.
 
sausage4ever said:
Dwarfs should go in pairs or trios. I'll ask my friend if she wants dwarfs again.
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yes they should except the bunch i rescued a few months ago i ended up having to split up because of fighting. they were living together and im sure the on was mom to the other two. so now its just gloria all by herself i feel bad but..........
 
Pictures!

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The female. (with no babies) :D ^

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The male ^

And... ickle babies. Sorry its kind of dark. No flash. Got it while mom was in her little hut on the other side of the bin.
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I know that dwarf hamsters can live in groups, but my questions is, how many can you safely place in one home. These little guys tend to squeeze through the bars of the hamster cages so I would think an aquarium would be best. Do you plan on re-introducing the 2 adult females? Where's the picture of the new mummy? We need some pictures of her too! :whip:
 
LOL. I have to be careful with mom because she DOES nip if I poke at her too much, but that's understandable, she probably thinks I'm gonna do something to her babies... She is perfect once she's outside of the cage. I scooped her out and got these while giving her a minute away from eeping babies.

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Maple: In the right conditions I've seen groups of up to about six dwarfs do fine together. However you would need an absolutely humungous cage to do this. The minimum cage for just one or two dwarfs is about 360 square inches in floor space. It's difficult to find a decent sized wire cage that has small enough bar spacing for dwarfs. So tanks or bin cages are usually used instead.

I would aslo becareful re-introducing the one girl to the mother as often after being separated dwarfs don't get on well and it's difficult to succesfully introduce dwarfs. It wouldn't hurt to try though. ;)

The mother is beautiful! <3
 
Randomrat said:
Maple: In the right conditions I've seen groups of up to six dwarfs do fine together. However you would need an absolutely humungous cage to do this. The minimum cage for just one or two dwarfs is about 360 square inches in floor space. It's difficult to find a decent sized wire cage that has small enough bar spacing for dwarfs. So tanks or bin cages are usually used instead.
I would also be careful re-introducing the one girl to the mother as often after being separated dwarfs don't get on well and it's difficult to successfully introduce dwarfs. It wouldn't hurt to try though. ;)
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My daughter has two of these little girls and one of them kept squeezing through the bars thats why I thought an aquarium would be better. I have 50 gallon aquariums which are approximately 650 square inches of floor space, so based on your calculations, that would only be good for 3. As far as re-introducing, they sound a lot like gerbils, very dangerous to introduce. With this in mind, would it have been better to leave the new mother and her babies in with the other female, instead of separating them?

Scythe, it sounds like you won`t have any problems finding homes for them all. Keep posting updated pictures. :thumbup:
 
Yes they make rats look easy to introduce. I've talked to a few people who have attempted it and only one of them had it completely succesful.

I don't think that leaving the other female would have been the best idea, though she may have been fine. It would depend on how the mother reacted I suppose. If she was overprotective of her litter than she may have attacked the other female, or she could have been stressed by the other female and rejected/culled her litter or they may have got along just fine and the other female would have been a good auntie. It's all luck and chance. If the other girl is pregnant than there could have been two irritable hams in one cage with a litter in the middle. I've had a few dwarfs live on their own and they had good long lives (except one who I suspected had a severe case of diabetes).
 
I figured separating them would be the best idea because there's a chance both of them could be pregnant as we speak, and I didn't wanna take that risk. From what I saw, they were both taking care of the babies, and I actually had a VERY hard time figuring out who was mom, because they were both sitting on the babies, taking turns.
 

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