Accidental litters - how to handle this

[Maz]

New hamster owners often get landed with an unexpected litter. Sometimes they have bought a Syrian only to find out the Syrian is not male, it is female and pregnant. And don't even realise until the babies are born. Other times people buy a pair of "same sex" dwarf hamsters, only to find one is male and one is female and the female has given birth.

Here are some important tips for handling this.

1) Don't disturb the Mother's nest or be tempted to poke around in it or peek at the babies (sometimes the only way you're aware the hamster has given birth is the sound of squeaks).
2) Remove the hamster wheel, but don't clean anything out.
3) Leave everything undisturbed but keep adding more bedding and plenty of hamster mix and extra veg daily - ideally when the Mother is asleep.
4) Keep a distance from the cage except when putting nesting material and food and water out.

This is important because the Mother's instinct is to cull the babies (ie cannibalise/eat them) if she thinks they are under threat by a different scent or the nest being disturbed. This is always upsetting. So give them the best chance by just being patient and keeping a distance.

Once the babies emerge from the nest, then it's safe to spot clean the cage a bit and start handling the babies a little bit (ideally in the cage at this stage rather than removing them).

The babies usually start emerging from the nest when they're about 10 days old but it's best not to handle them till their eyes are fully open and they're coming out freely.

The Mother still needs plenty of extra food and veg as she's still feeding the babies (who are still taking milk from her as well as eating hamster food and veg).

The babies will be weaned at about 3 to 4 weeks old and at that time can be separated from the Mother.

It's important to sex the babies before they get to 4 weeks old and separate the boys into a separate cage (the girls can stay with the Mother a bit longer). They can mate with siblings or the Mother after 4 weeks and there can then be another litter. (They're not choosy!)'

Start advertising the babies when they're about 3 weeks old possibly so you can find new homes for them by the time they are 6 weeks old.

Culling:

Sadly this can happen even if you don't disturb the nest, if the Mother is a very young hamster herself and doesn't know what to do. Sometimes she will only cull a particular baby, if she senses it has a birth defect.

Emergencies:

Sometimes a Mother may become ill before or during pregnancy or while trying to give birth. This is a vet emergency and the Mother will be in terrible pain or could die. The vet may be able to help save either the Mother or the babies or both. So if you have a new female hamster who is looking wide at the back end (you can sometimes see baby bumps with a Syrian but not necessarily with a dwarf) and she becomes unwell then it's an emergency vet appointment.

 

[Member ID2]

I've been in this situation and could write about my experience but everything has been well covered in above article.

See the tiny face in the substrate in this photo?
That was the very first moment i became aware that i had adopted a pregnant dwarf hamster. I had my phone on me and was able to capture that moment and then i started to worry.

 

[Maz]

Oh goodness that must have been a surprise! Feel free to add your experiences with a dwarfie litter.

 

[Maz]

I just edited it to add about pregnancy complications.

 

[Member ID2]

Everything has been well covered by Maz so all i can add is the emotional side and believe me, it is an experience i do not wish to repeat.

After losing a succession of lovely dwarf hybrids to various illnesses, i decided to adopt a pedigree dwarf hamster in the hope that better genes would lead to better health.

I didn't want a baby due to my personal views on breeding so decided to contact a registered breeder to offer a forever home to a hamster retired from breeding.

Soon after the lovely Gertie joined our family. She was a big, round pedigree winter white dwarf hamster with a reserved personality.
I gave Gertie time to settle into her Hamster Heaven that had a house and hides, various bridges and shelves, a 9in Silent Runner and a flying saucer, a sandbath jar and plenty of food, substrate and treats.

I started to gently handle Gertie and one day she bit me when i touched her belly but i thought nothing of it.
I carried on with gentle taming, took Gertie out of her cage for short periods of time when she sat by her door.
Gertie was a big girl and always on the look out for more food. I fed enough for one to eat and to build a hoard so was a bit puzzled why she still wanted more.

One morning i sat by her cage and this tiny, furry face appeared in the substrate. My head swivelled from Gertie to furry face and back several times until it dawned on me.

 

[Member ID2]

It took a while to fully sink in and so many questions were swirring around my head. How come? Why didn't i notice? What to do? How many?

Then i spung into action and removed the Silent Runner on its heavy base but left everything else in place. My reasoning was that to remove furnishings at that point would upset Gertie and her babies so I added more substrate to reduce any future fall risks.
I gave a lot of extra food including more egg and greens which Gertie gratefully accepted.
I felt so so bad and guilty for Gertie bringing up her babies without receiving extra food.

Luckily i had not done any spot cleaning because Gertie was still in a settling in phase when she gave birth so the nest had never been discovered or disturbed.

The next question was how many. Over the next few days more babies kept appearing and we tried to count them. In the end we counted 8 babies!

The Hamster Heaven turned into a nursery with lots of babies running around playing, squabbling, squeaking.
At first Gertie grabbed the babies by their neck and carried them back to the nest but while she carried one another one surfaced and she eventually gave up trying to control her unruly offspring.
Sometimes Gertie sat in her ceramic hide on top of a shelf to get a rest but the babies grew so fast that they soon followed her up.

The babies were thriving and growing and so was my worry about what to do with them. At this point we had a total of 15 hamsters which was a little overwhelming.

 

[Member ID2]

I had been in contact with the breeder who was very helpful and willing to take the whole litter of babies which took the immediate pressure of me.
It also caused me a major moral dilemma. I wanted the babies to become loved pets in forever homes. I didn't want them to possibly face their youth and early adulthood as breeding animals.

I felt that i had no choice with so many babies at hand because i didn't feel confident to sex them correctly and the last thing i wanted was to risk babies producing more babies.

They were weaned by 3 weeks old and quite independent by which time it became clear that Gertie was tired and needed her own space.
By around 4 weeks old i decided that the time had come to hand them over to the breeder. I kept 2 girls to rehome them myself and found them loving forever homes.

Once the babies had moved on i cleaned Gertie's cage but used some of the old substrate and put her Silent Runner back in.

Gertie blossomed and became a very tame and sociable hamster. She developed her own lovely personality after months of being a mum.

This experience resulted in me keeping male hamsters only.

 

[Maz]

It must have been such a worry and I do remember the babies everywhere. It seems unthinkable that a hamster retired from breeding should be pregnant. Mating by breeders is supposed to be carefully orchestrated and planned and litters removed from the Mother before any boy babies reach mating age. There are ethical breeders out there.

 

[RainbowBrite]

Ever since I first had animals, I have had nightmares about this happening to me. They are so vivid and I wake thinking they are real. It is a huge worry of mine as I would want to keep the babies and would not be able to.

 

[Member ID2]

I understand that and totally agree. It is quite an upsetting experience. Had Gertie only had 2 or 3 babies i would have kept and rehomed them myself. It's the sheer number of babies i couldn't cope with because i had other hamsters as well.
Someone i know took in a female Syrian who turned out to be pregnant and had 14 babies but sadly they all died shortly after including the mother.
I never understand people who breed hamsters for fun, for money or as a hobby without knowing anything about genetics or complications that can arise. They risk their hamsters lives for their own gratification.

 

[RainbowBrite]

I understand that and totally agree. It is quite an upsetting experience. Had Gertie only had 2 or 3 babies i would have kept and rehomed them myself. It's the sheer number of babies i couldn't cope with because i had other hamsters as well.
Someone i know took in a female Syrian who turned out to be pregnant and had 14 babies but sadly they all died shortly after including the mother.
I never understand people who breed hamsters for fun, for money or as a hobby without knowing anything about genetics or complications that can arise. They risk their hamsters lives for their own gratification.

That poor person must have been heart broken.

 

[Maz]

Ever since I first had animals, I have had nightmares about this happening to me. They are so vivid and I wake thinking they are real. It is a huge worry of mine as I would want to keep the babies and would not be able to.

Don't worry rainbow. If it happened to you, you have help on here I would also be worried about finding good homes if there were quite a few of them. But most people seem to.

 

[RainbowBrite]

Don't worry rainbow. If it happened to you, you have help on here I would also be worried about finding good homes if there were quite a few of them. But most people seem to.

That is very sweet of you to say. Thank you. I would also worry about finding homes. Nobody I know would have space for a hamster.

 

[Maz]

Roborovskis can be the issue in this situation. They breed like rabbits (or rather, like roborovskis). They can pregnant every few weeks. The Mother can get pregnant straight after giving birth if the Father is left in there (some people don't realise this). They are incredibly hard to sex when separating the babies from the Mother as they're so tiny. Even if you remove all the babies from the Mother it only takes one mis-sexing of a boy and the siblings can all have litters a few weeks later. Some hamster rescues have had to step in when some poor owner has dozens of robos on their hand breeding week by week and they can't cope or sex them. One rescue said they had to take in about 20 baby robos.

 

[Maz]

That is very sweet of you to say. Thank you. I would also worry about finding homes. Nobody I know would have space for a hamster.

People have to advertise and then vet those who respond to the advert. I found our first robo like that. Someone who had bought a pair that then had babies so they were advertising the babies. She at least took the babies to the vet to be sexed correctly so they didn't reproduce again with their siblings. But our robo had had a lot of stress with all the vet visits etc before he came to us.

 

[RainbowBrite]

Roborovskis can be the issue in this situation. They breed like rabbits (or rather, like roborovskis). They can pregnant every few weeks. The Mother can get pregnant straight after giving birth if the Father is left in there (some people don't realise this). They are incredibly hard to sex when separating the babies from the Mother as they're so tiny. Even if you remove all the babies from the Mother it only takes one mis-sexing of a boy and the siblings can all have litters a few weeks later. Some hamster rescues have had to step in when some poor owner has dozens of robos on their hand breeding week by week and they can't cope or sex them. One rescue said they had to take in about 20 baby robos.

This is interesting because they are like guinea pigs. They can get pregnant and just 3 weeks old and also go into season as soon as they give birth. You can imagine people in that situation end up with lots of guinea pigs too.

 

[Member ID2]

I rescued dwarfs once from a situation like that. A couple bought a same sex pair that had been wrongly sexed and they ended up with a dozen dwarfs, unable to cope. In the end they were so desperate they contacted rescues. I volunteered for one and collected five of the dwarfs. Two of the females were pregnant but i fostered the daddy so he was well out of the way.