My Pet Hamsters

Archive for the ‘Hamster Care’ Category

The new hamsters on the block!

As I have said before, Peter would be spending Christmas in their plain old house. And for good reason!

Meet the new hamsters on the block! Err… The cage, I mean These are Abester’s new babies. There are three of them actually, the other one is just camera-shy!

Three blind mice (or baby hamsters, should I say)

Our female pet hamster, code named Abester, has just recently produced 3 healthy litters. Initially, it was four but one got eaten by Mommy herself. Hamsters have cannibalistic nature and they usually eat their own babies when threatened. Breeding hamsters seem to be a lot complicated than I thought it would be.

There was no warning or indication. No swelling tummy or unusual odor. We knew she was pregnant but we did not know when she would give birth. Our female hamster was in a small clear plastic housing together with 3 other male companions. I was watching National Geographic. Then I heard some commotion. To my surprise, Abester has produced 4 tiny miniature hamsters scattered all over the cage. She obviously felt threatened so she was already starting to munch on one of the litters. I quickly got all the other male hamsters out of the cage.

We had to use old newspaper to cover the whole cage. We also had to refrain from cleaning the cage to avoid triggering the hamster’s cannibalistic behavior. This gave the female hamster security for her and the babies. After a few days, the remaining 3 litters have survived. They all look like just their Mommy.

The jealous female

A few days ago, an uncle of mine came over for some design work. Before he got into dog breeding, he used to care for a bunch of hamsters. I think he got into hamster breeding a bit, until my great-aunt (his mom) decided that they needed to get a dog. But before the hamsters went away, he pretty much had a thorough understanding of their behavior.

My uncle said that female hamsters are the trouble-makers in the breed. They’re more aggressive than the males. He’s right, actually. I noticed the same in our hamsters. Ever since we started caring for Wendy’s babies, we were able to somehow get an idea of how hamsters interact in a group.

The female ones are indeed very aggressive. The females that we have are the ones who usually fight over toys, food, and territory. My uncle said it’s a good thing that these females grew up together, else, they’ll probably end up killing each other. It’s ok to have two males and a female, but never two females and a male.

Heh. Funny how this behavior is similar to humans huh? Women are usually more jealous than men