Hamster dead, long live the hamsters?

I had 2 hamsters. They were both males and of the dwarf kind (the very small ones I don't know the official english term for it though).

This morning one of them just dropped death. He was very healthy up untill then. Since he was only half a year old I wanted to clean out the cage imediatly to prevent the other hamster from catching something (I thought he may have had a virus or something). When I lifted up the nesting material I found 6 ( I MEAN SIX!!!!!!!!) baby hamsters!!!!

The dead he turned out to be a she and by the looks of the babies they are about a week old. The most likely thing that has happened is that one babyhamster stayed behind in the womb and that it got infected. I can't believe I never noticed anything. I just noticed an increase in food usage over the last couple of days.

Anyway... now I've got 6 little hamsters to take care of. Luckely hamster dads of this type are nice to their offspring and he's trying to keep them warm. I feed them every two hours with kittenmilk.

Here's a picture


Well that was my adventure of the day.

Those are soooooo cute and congrats!!!!

Thanks. They are very cute indeed.

I was just very scared when I first layed eyes on them because I thought they were all gonna die too (with momhamster gone) but they seem to be drinking very well so I have good hopes.

Awww....how sweet!
I fall for lil furry things
Sorry about the mommy...

I used to have a hamster from Hell!
I went to pick it up oneday and it crunched down on the end of my index finger hitting the bone!

Talk about looking like a horror scene, blood was projectiling from my finger all over the headboard!
I picked the hamster up to take him to his cage and all down the hall blood shot out on the walls and floor!

A couple days later, it escaped from it's cage, and I was really scared!
I had no idea how sharp their teeth were, until I found it dead!

Goodluck with the cuties!


[edit on 4/4/2008 by Givenmay]

reply to post by ambushrocks


Best wishes to you with your babies! Hopefully they will do well on the kitten milk. A friend of mine found a baby squirrel when her husband chopped a tree down and it did well on kitten milk.

Do you have a heating pad? You might want to get the male out of there (hampsters will eat their own babies) and put that in there to keep them warm instead.

Thank you. I put it near the radiator, it'll keep them warm. The hamsters I have are of the Russian type so the male helps out, from the info I read I understand his role crucial right now and I should not remove him from the babies, but i do keep a close I on him.

Hopefully they are at least a week old, because around 7-10 days they don't require thier mother and can eat solid food.

Was the one that died the female? Female hamsters will eat their litter if they are disturb too much, so don't poke around in there unless you have to.

Sexual maturity will hit around 7-10 weeks, so becareful that they don't start humping each other.

Hamster are neat rodents, if you drop the temperature on where they are being housed they will hibernate. I forget how cold you have to make.

Good luck

Thank you. Yes I know for sure that they are at least a week old.

It's the mom who died. Unfortunatly... but we are lucky to have a very caring father. I was feeding the little ones earlier and one of them made a little noise and father just sprinted to the rescue.

Some new pictures... they are so cute... and they are all still alive!!!!

reply to post by ambushrocks


Awww, you have some cute little furry's there lady!
Do you bottle feed them by hand, or use the dropper thing?

I have fed them by hand but now they drink out of a little dish. They start to nibble on solid food too now!

I've made a little video of one of the babies!

I've gotta say that this is the most heart warming thread I've read in ages.

Well done matey, sorry to hear about mom, but great to hear that the little'uns are doing well. Keep up the good work

Flagged !!!

Wow, ambush, what a neat thread! Congratulations on the new little ones! What a surprise! And they are good looking. You are taking such good care of them.

I had a cat that almost died (had to take her to a vet) from the birthing problem you described.
As a child, I had hamsters as pets. The cage had a metal wheel that squeaked so much at night when they used it, that it kept us awake, until we finally put the cage in a back room.
Hamsters Rule!

Thank you both!

I'm very happy as well that the little ones are doing well. They are groing quite good now and I believe that all of them are gonna make it. I'll try to post more pics tomorrow.

Oh, I love cute critters! We need names for your new pals later on, okay? How cute -- kissy, kissy!

They've got names now! I made a vid and pic of each of them and detemined their sex. I'll post the pics + the links to the vids. Enjoy!



Ifrit

www.youtube.com...

Moogle

www.youtube.com...

Ragnarok

www.youtube.com...

Tonberry

www.youtube.com...

PuPu

www.youtube.com...

Chocobo

www.youtube.com...

(their names are inspired by Final Fantasy... I needed a theme... coming up with 6 names is hard if you don't have a theme lol)

[edit] their sex is in dutch, man means male, vrouw means female, geslacht means gender

[edit on 9/4/08 by ambushrocks]

OH MY GOD..That is TOO CUTE!

Thanks for the names and video link. All your hamsters are adorable and active in the video, except for PuPu who sat and looked around. Kissy, kissy to them!

reply to post by ambushrocks


Cute hamsters.

I would try to separate the males and females as soon as possible though. I had two dwarf hamsters, and that eventually turned into 14 over a period of two months. Frisky little things! :bnghd:

Everyone that came to my place got offered a free hammy, and now I'm down to 4 lady hamsters. Thankfully so, the momma was getting pretty stressed having all those babies.

Good luck with them!