My hamster died and her babies are left. they;re 2 weeks old. will they survive without their mother ?

Question

My hamster died and her babies are left. they;re 2 weeks old. will they survive without their mother ?

Answer 1

Try feeding the babies by laying a piece of milk soaked white bread in a shallow dish, take each of them to the dish, you may even need to show them that it's there by putting a drop on their mouth area. Make sure that the milk bread is a bit warm, a little warmer then room temp. I've been forced to separate babies this young before and the milk bread works for us until you can slowly start adding more solids.  

Answer 2

I'd go to the pet store and buy a white mouse that is nursing babies of approximately the same age as your hamsters. Get some of the bedding from her petstore cage.  Put the mother mouse in a separate cage. (Buy the babies, too- this should cost you about $10.)  Put the baby mice and the baby hamsters in a nest made from the mouse's bedding  in a CLEAN cage that does not smell like the adult hamster.  Leave them for 1 hour, then put Mama mouse in.  The odds are that she will accept the baby hamsters and nurse them with her babies.  At 3 weeks you can start offering solid foods and water.  If they survive the next week they should be fine.

You can always return the Mama mouse and babies to the petstore when all the babies and the hamsters are 4 weeks old- but just so you know, the mice will probably be snake food.  Perhaps you could keep Mama mouse and one of her daughters in a separate cage and give the others to friends or to a school?  Same with the hamsters- keep 2 girls.

Syringe feeding is time-consuming and difficult with such small animals.  Try the mouse first.  If she seems agressive or uncaring, then try syringe feeding.  You will also need a f***y pack to carry the babies around in, or a very carefully controlled warm environment so that they do not get hypothermia without their mom.  Good luck- email if you need more info.

I raised rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, and rabbits for years and I have done the foster thing using female mice and female rats to raise many other species.

Answer 3

Probably not.

Normally, hamsters can be separated from mum at three weeks minimum.

You may need to get a very small syringe and gently feed them puppy or kitten powdered milk, and encourage them to toilet by rubbing a damp cloth over their ends.

(But if you decided to breed them, shouldn't you know this already? I mean, come on. It's called /research/.)