Dwarft Hamspters - one of my babies keeps getting attacked, they are nearly 5 weeks old they have?

Question

my ham had babies they are nearly 5 weeks old our vet has sexed them and the girls are with the mum still they have a very big cage with plenty of room and food and water but one of the babies is been attacked by the others and the mum i have moved her so that she is on her own tonight as she has some bad injuries why r they attacking her ? and i am i doing the right thing by removing her

Answer 1

you are absolutely doing the right thing...keep her out of the cage with the other hammies..

Answer 2

Yes, you are doing the right thing.

Hamsters are often not a very social animal, so it is common for them to kill another hamster that they feel competitive with.

If you put her back in with the others, she will likely be killed.

I guess I could have said that you could have used them as fighting hamsters and won lots of gambling proceeds, but that wouldn't have been nice!!!

Answer 3

Its HAMSTERS not HAMPSTERS!!!!! Geeze

Answer 4

You are doing the right thing by separating them and if she keeps getting attacked you should leave it that way.

They may be attacking her because she is weak or maybe has a disease, (if she shows any signs take her to the vet ASAP) but the best thing you can do is separate them for now.

Have you considered the fact that maybe the vet might be wrong and that they are picking on it because it is a different s*x?

Answer 5

You are doing the absolute right thing by removing them.  It is not unusual at all for a mother rodent (especially hamsters) to turn cannibal on babies this age.  She would probably eat the babies if you do not remove them.  The babies should now have their own cage.  It's nothing you're doing, it's just a part of hamster nature.  The injured baby should maybe be in yet another cage and watched very closely, but they're very fragile at that age and rarely survive an attack.  Good luck with them. :(

Answer 6

Sometimes hamsters just dont get along no matter how young they have been together,  you are defiantly doing the right thing, besides i think the mom deserves a break from them,

Answer 7

yes, you are doing the right thing by removing the ones that are being picked on.  a lot of times dwarfs actually learn to be fairly social if raised in large numbers, so dont let it scare you.  with a litter, it is very common for there to be one baby that is picked on and often killed by the others.  that is nature's survival of the fittest, aka competition and elimination.  (essentialy the other hammies are saying, if you cant play the game than beat it.  however, this hamster doesnt exactly have a whole eco system to run a goose chase in)

what i would do is just try and find the babies all new homes asap, to prevent any other issues.  unless you have a breeders knowledge it can be hard sometimes to breed dwarfs.  (the stereotype that dwarfs are solitary is not true.  they usually only have problems with other members of their same s*x.)

also, concerning the mother, around the time that you are able to s*x and seperate the babies, remove the mother from ALL of her babies.  this allows her a break so that she is not being constantly harassed by the others for milk, attention, etc.  since she is a bit stressed out from raising a litter, it is always necessary to give the mothers at least 2 weeks alone.  this prevents any bad tempermant problems, so that they will be happier and get a long more.

another thing, please use punctuation.  (i dont mean to offend or seem snotty)  when askers dont use punctuation, it makes it very hard to answer the question with proper clarity.  

*hamsters

Hope this helps.

Answer 8

good idea to move her out of the cage...

good luck