Dwarf hamster question?

Question

okay, well a couple of years ago, I had these two chinese dwarf hamsters (they are both dead now btw) but they were both females and I named them Penny and Jenny. I got Penny first, and then Jenny a couple of days later. They would get along fabulously, they would sleep together, eat together, run on their wheel together. But one day, I came home from school, and Penny was kinda...a dead carcas. Jenny, well ate her. I thought dwarf hamsters were social creatures and supposed to have company...am I wrong? It's just always confused me.....

Answer 1

It probably was natural causes, tumor, infction, wet tail, and hamster will eat the carcass of a dead hamster do to the space it takes up or the smell, they justdon't like carcasses lying around....yes they are usually very friendly towards another...

Answer 2

Dwarf hamster normally only get along with each other in same gender pairs if they have been together since they were born and or in the same litter. Sometimes you will luck out and newly introduced hamsters will get along. Hamsters will eat their own kind if they feel they are a threat, since they got along, i asuming thats why. If Penny was already dead from natural causes, the other would think of it as threat because in the wild a predator would smell the dead body and therefor the whol group would be in danger. The only way to get rid of that threat would be to eat the dead body. It is just a method of survival. The may have gotten into a fight, but since they got along so well for so long, they may not have had a fight.

Answer 3

You can never buy them seperatly if you are going to have 2 you HAVE to buy them together becuase then they are brothers and sisters.NEVER buy them seperatl or they wil kill eachother.

Answer 4

It is true that dwarf hamsters can live together but people forget the other condition - that to live together peacefully, they must come from the same litter. If they are not from the same litter, they can fight too. From what you have described, my guess is Penny and Jenny are NOT from the same litter.

Any hamster, even syrians, can stay with another hamster when they are young but when they become adults, they can turn territorial and start showing vicious attitude towards other hamsters sharing their cages. I think the same might have happened in the case of Penny and Jenny - they were alright first together but as they grew older, they fought since they are not from the same litter.

Even if Penny died a normal death, hamsters are genetically oriented to stash energy from dead hamsters in the wild and the same behavior is exhibited in tame hamsters too - the living hamster would eat the dead hamster's carcass to remove the carcass from its cage.

Though it might sound gross to us that such cute looking animals can do this too, it is the way hamsters live in the wild and it is not their fault that nature has engineered them that way.

Don't hate Jenny for it though, it is not her fault. I am sure she was a great pet to you for her lifetime. In the future, if you want to buy pairs of dwarf hamsters, make doubly sure that they are from the same litter.

Answer 5

i thought so too... it's weird... maybe they're like us... there's always some killer wackos out there...

Answer 6

well the thing is they must be bought together so they get to know each other.other than that,the one may just be trying to be nice to her so that she will easily strike her,like on To Serve Man.