Hamster fight question!?

Question

1. I've had my hamsters for a couple of months now. I put them in the same cage when I first got them. They lived happily together, until one day, they started fighting! I then separated them and put them in separate cages for a couple of weeks.

Why are they fighting?

2. I set up the playpen and put one of my hamsters in. I didn't think that my hamsters would fight, so I decided to put them together. Then one of them jumped on the other and they started fighting! It smelled TERRIBLY when they were fighting. Why did it smell so bad during the fight?

My theory for the second question was maybe they set off a certain smell for other hamsters to come and help them or something.... "D idkk, but please help mehh!! :[

Answer 1

you may have two females. male hamsters do get Territorial but nothing compared to how females are.

Answer 2

I'm thinking these Hamsters are both males right...well if they are getting older they will fight over everything food, territory, and the smell was them spraying their testosone scented pee something else they do. time for separate cages sad i know but they won't stop fighting now..sorry.

Answer 3

I've heard of this happening before.

When younger, I don't think hamsters care much about fighting or territory, but they start getting a bit more agressive about it as they get older. They will end up fighting each other, trying to win over the territory. (The cage.) It just happens, and it's normal. Keep them seperated, otherwise they will keep fighting, possibly to the death. And if they are seperated for a couple of weeks, they will basically forget each other and consider them a threat.

For the second question about the smell, it's probably them spraying their scent mark in an attempt to become the dominant/victor. I'd imagine the fight was a hamster spray inferno.

Anyways, like I said above, keep them seperated, and things should be okay. Make sure to wash your hands in between handlings so the other's scent isn't on your hand, and one of them attacks you.

Answer 4

Dwarf hamsters can live together if they are from the same litter or have been introduced at the same young age.If they are not from the same litter or have an age difference, they can fight too. In a few rare cases, litter mates can also viciously fight since one might decide to have the "dominate" character over the other.

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 your hamsters - they were alright first together but as they became adults, they fought due to their territorial behavior.

It is wise of your to separate them. Once separated even for a week, since hamsters have short memory, they would forget that they once lived together in the same cage. When you put them in a playpen, they fought since they think of each other as threat to their living.

The strong smell during their fight shows they are not cage mates anymore and consider each other as enemy. When two hamsters fight, they let out the smell to mark their territory first. I can understand the smell very well since I have been with two dwarf hamsters who fought viciously within just 5 seconds of putting them together and I still remember the strong smell that was generated in those 5 seconds before I split them up.

This shows very definitely that your two hamsters won't be cage mates anymore, so don't put them together again, let them live happily in their own cage (territory).