My mama hamster, we found her. but we put her back in the cage she tryed to eat the babies why?

Question

we found her. she been gone less than 4 hours. i put her back in the cage and she tried to eat two babies. i put her in a separate cage. is that normal? why would she do that?

Answer 1

DON'T put her in a seperate cage.

They need mother's milk!

And she did it because she felt her nest was disturbed- even if she ran away and left them, she would feel the nest was under threat, and rodents under threat will eat their babies rather than let predators eat them.

(Also, looking at your other questions, she probably decided you were a no good backyard breeder and deserved to be shocked into stopping breeding the poor things.)

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She will do what she wants.

What YOU want doesn't matter.

You decided to breed them, you deal with the consequences.

They need mother's milk- they will die without it.

Put her back in there, turn the lights off, leave her alone, and hope for the best. That's all you can do in a catch 22 situation.

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Sweetie, I read your other questions. You were planning on breeding them! And you have breed them! That's it, that's all there is. You can't hide the questions I've already read.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 2

once hamsters have babies don't touch the hamster since it got lost and you touched it, it felt threatened and it trying to eat them also male hamster do that it won't eat all of them but some will be eaten

Answer 3

yes that is what hamsters do

Answer 4

Female hamsters cannabalize their babies when they percieve a threat. For example, this may happen if your hamster lives with another hamster while giving birth, or if you touch any of her babies before she is finished with them (give her two weeks to be safe). You should provide her with a large cage, since you should not handle the hamsters during pregnancy OR while the mother is taking care of her young. Don't disturb her by cleaning the cage during this time. A small cage can get dirty more easily, which sometimes causes diseases.

If a mother hamster knows that there is something wrong with one of her babies she will eat it. If she doesn't think that there is enough food or water for them all to survive she may eat a few to keep them from dying a horrible death of starvation. Even if her babies seem fine to you, she may be able to sense something internally wrong with it.  Some mothers eat the babies because they may have an unseen illness.