I have all my dwarf hamsters in my room.
I have 8 Robo’s:
1.1 Flower
1.2 Yossarian
1.3 Shakespeare
1.4 Tosca
1.5 Daisy
1.6 Mitch
1.7 Rocket Dog
1.8 Axel
2 Chinese dwarf’s:
2.1 Cazanna
2.2 Big Si
4 Winter whites:
3.1 Nikita
3.2 Hannibal
3.3 Wilson
3.4 Zorro
4 Russian dwarf’s:
4.1 Lola
4.2 Frank
4.3 Punk
4.4 Houdini
3 Cambells:
5.1 Mozart
5.2 Carlos
5.3 Kinkajou
Ok so all these guys live together in my room. They do some times fight…. But they only fight some times at dinner time. They do have babies, some times they do eat each other’s babies :L But I re home the babies. They don’t have babies very often as the females mainly aviod the males.
They have a natural life kind of. I hide food round my bed room….. They don’t drink from a bottle. The oldest is Flower. She’s 4 years old and I think she leads all the robo’s :> Anyway, am I doing the right thing? They all sleep in houses, with cotton woll. They stay out of each other’s way but the russian’s, winter whites, and cambells do get along pretty well. There has been no death’s or any injury’s. No in-breeding. At night I put the groups into 10 gallon tanks to sleep in. They room is hamster-proof. Am I doing the right thing? Should I put them into cages? Or let them live in my room. Flower and Mitch are 3.5 years old. The others are their offspring… None of the other’s are though. I have given away the offspring. But not the robo’s which are adult’s now. They drink for a shallow bowl which I think is better, They have tubes, toys and wooden things to chew on. I have no job any more, I’m 18 and I can spend all day watching all them play. Also, I don’t really get many babies but is how many times a year should they be breeding? Like max
Thanks for your help!
May 12th, 2010 - 4:41 pm
Hmmm, I’ve never heard of anyone devoting an entire room to their hamsters. Normally most dwarfs do not like very much company of their own kind, they tend to be solitary creatures as they age. But there are always exceptions. I think it is a very good idea that you put them in large tanks at night, if not to isolate them, but just to make sure everyone is accounted for. It’s also good that you monitor the breeding because inbreeding is a concern, but you seem to have that well under control. In a completely wild setting without any human interaction hamsters will breed as long as they are able. Typically the babies will leave the mother after a month, maybe a little longer, as they are close to full grown and can eat solid food and forage for themselves. The female may wait a couple weeks before breeding again, she may not. I say as a guess that the most they breed willingly is 12 times a year (or about once a month) but I don’t know that they would want to do that all the time, so closer to 6 or 8 is probably what your looking at, at least for a maximum. You said some of them are a few years old, so those are probably done breeding. Since they have so much room to themselves if they want, then I think what you are doing is the right thing, especially if you’ve been doing it for so long and had no problems. Unless you start to see issues arise (like inbreeding, over breeding, fighting, illness, etc.) I’d just keep doing what you are doing. Being able to roam around this much is good for them, so putting them in cages now would actually probably start fights.
May 12th, 2010 - 4:41 pm
Wow that’s totally awesome! I would love to have hamsters running all over my room, but my mom wouldn’t be too happy about that! I think it’s cool that you let them live like they would in the wild, but i’m surprised they don’t fight. I think it’s your choice where you want them, just be careful not to step on them : )